LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


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^s 


THE  TALES  OF  TERROR 


CHRISTABEL  FORSYTHE  FISKE,  PH.B. 

(CORNELL) 


A  THESIS  SUBMITTED  TO  THE  COLUMBIAN  UNIVERSITY  IN 

PART  SATISFACTION  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR 

THE  DEGREE  OF  MASTER  OF  ARTS,  J899 


Reprinted  from  The  Conservative  Review  of  March.  1900 


THE  NEALE  COMPANY 

431  ELEVENTH  STREET,  N.  W. 

Washington,  D.  C. 


THE  TALES  OF  TERROR 

BY 

CH-RISTABEL  FORSYTHE  FISKE,  PH.B. 

(CORNELL) 


A  THESIS  SUBMITTED  TO  THE  COLUMBIAN  UNIVERSITY  IN 

PART  SATISFACTION  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR 

THE  DEGREE  OF  MASTER  OF  ARTS,   J899 


Reprinted  from  The  Conservative  Review  of  March,  1900 


THE  NEALE  COMPANY 

431  ELEVENTH  STREET,  N.  W. 

Washington,  D.  C. 


THE  TALES  OF  TERROR 

By  CHRISTABEL  FORSYTHE  FISKE,  M.A. 

AWAY  back  in  the  days  when  Poetry  had  dropped  her  wings 
and  was  walking  with  orderly  tread,  when  Pope  and 
his  successors  were  peopling  Windsor  Forest  with  classical 
gods  and  fauna,  two  men  fell  a-dreaming,  a  vagary  not  often 
indulged  in  during  that  unshaded  glare  of  Augustan  day- 
light. And  the  thrush  in  Thompson's  heart  sent  so  sweet  a 
song  thrilling  out  through  that  weary,  conventional  old 
world  that  other  birds  stirred  in  their  nests  and  joined  the 
strain,  while  Walpole's  Will-o'-the-wisp  vision  likewise  led 
him  out  from  the  trim  garden-plots  of  the  Classicists  into  a 
wild  forest  where  he  and  his  followers  beat  out  a  little  tangled 
by-path  forgotten  now  for  many  a  day,  but  worthy  of  kinder 
treatment,  if  only  for  the  splashes  of  sunshine  which 
surprise  us  here  and  there,  and  for  the  fact  that,  far  on  in 
its  windings,  two  fair  spirits  step  out  from  its  mazes  into  the 
golden  highway  over  which  the  Great  march  on  into  immor- 
tality. It  is  down  this  old,  neglected  wood-path  that  we 
will  wander  for  a  while. 

Heine  speaks  somewhere  of  "that  inexplicable  mysteri-N 
ous  shudder  which  seizes  one  in  reading  these  apparently 
harmless  tales."  He  questions,  "whence  does  it  arise  if  not 
from  some  half-unconscious  undercurrent  of  our  being,  to 
which  indefinite  element  the  author  has  appealed?"  Dunlop 
speaks  more  explicitly.  He  says,  "There  exists  in  every 
heart  at  all  susceptible  to  the  influence  of  the  imagination,  a 
certain  superstitious  dread  of  the  world  unknown  which 
easily  suggests  the  ideas  of  commerce  with  that  world." 
Now  we  all  know  how  the  Classicists  had  laughed  to  scorn 
any  tendency  toward  fanciful  superstition.  They  viewed 
things  in  clear  daylight.  An  ingrained  tendency  of  the 
human  soul  cannot,  however,  be  eternally  snubbed;  and  in 
the  general  emancipation  from  the  iron  rule  of  the  Classicists 


4  The  Tales  of  Terror 

the  superstitious  soul-fibre,  which  the  most  prosaic  of  us  at 
times  recognize,  claimed  its  right  to  stretch  itself  after  its 
long  repression.  But  how  could  a  ghost  trail  its  robe 
through/  the  plain,  matter-of-fact  world  of  Augustan  sun- 
shine? (Instinctively  the  mind  flew  back  to  the  dear  old  days 
of  mediaeval  darkness  when  churchyards  yawned  unchal- 
lenged, and  an  inheritance  of  phantoms  was  the  proud  pos- 
session of  any  family  worth  knowing.  And  thus  it  was  that 
the  spirit  of  feudal  days  laid  hold  of  Horace  Walpole,  and 
found  expression  in  his  Castles  both  of  Strawberry  Hill  and 
of  Otranto. ) 

One  point  should  be  specially  borne  in  mind,  the  neglect 
of  which  has  led  to  much  false  criticism.  The  distinct 
appeal  to  the  superstitious  element  in  our  souls,  this 
power  to  arouse  in  us  that  "inexplicable  mysterious  shud- 
der" of  which  Heine  speaks,  is  the  test  by  which  we 
must  judge  these  books.  /Do  they,  as  a  whole  (those  of 
the  representative  writers,  I  mean,  not  the  ridiculous  host  of 
imitators  who  turned  the  whole  school  into  a  laughing 
stock),  do  they  succeed  in  stimulating  us  to  a  mental  state 
of  fearsome  delight?  This  is  the  only  fair  standard  by  which 
to  judge  this  department  of  literature.^  What  does  it  matter 
that  the  heroes  are  sticks  and  the  heroines  dolls?  It  was  not 
to  create  character  that  Mrs.  Radcliffe  wrote.  What  differ- 
ence if  we  are  accompanied  through  desolate  castles  and 
vaults  by  weeping  Emilys  and  fainting  Amelias?  They 
are  the  merest  fringe  of  the  story — the  pivots  on  which 
it  turns.  The  real  heroine  is  you  yourself, — the  life  and 
heart  of  the  story  is  the  thrill  of  your  own  sensation  as  you 
shiver  at  the  storm  which  moans  at  the  window  and  rustles 
the  loose  tapestry. 

Another  fact  must  be  duly  considered.  Our  point  of 
view  must  be  correct  if  we  expect  to  enjoy  the  terror  of  these 
novels.  Any  one  who  looks  forward  to  the  palpable  excite- 
ment of  lying  awake  all  night  shivering  at  the  horror  por- 
trayed will  be  disappointed.  More  often  than  not  we  shall 
see  no  ghost  at  all,  and  we  should  realize  this  fact  before  we 
begin.  We  should  approach  these  terror-tales  in  precisely 
the  same  mood  in  which  parties  of  gay  young  people  plan 
invasions  of  "haunted  houses."  Such  a  party  of  girls  started 


The  Tales  of  Terror  5 

one  night  through  the  old  Tayloe  mansion  down  on  Nine- 
teenth Street  near  the  river.  Of  course  we  knew  beforehand 
that  it  was  empty  of  all  but  ourselves;  and  yet — the  mystery 
of  it  as  we  stole  along  with  lighted  tapers  and  hushed  voices ! 
What  was  that  rustle  just  behind  us?  And  that  shadow 
over  there  in  the  far  corner  of  the  desolate  old  banqueting 
hall,  where  years  and  years  ago  a  guest  once  murdered  his 
host  as  they  sat  at  wine?  And  that  curious  tap-tap-tap  which 
followed  our  hushed  steps  steadily  down  the  spiral  staircase ! 
Compared  to  this  subtle  tingling  of  nerve  and  brain  the 
intrusion  of  a  real  ghost  would  have  seemed  vulgarly  pal- 
pable. Had  we  seen  a  sheeted  figure  actually  stalking  through 
the  hall,  we  should  at  once  have  suspected  a  mischievous 
brother  or  two. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  fear  attendant 
upon  supernatural  occurrences  is  the  only  sort  which  our 
writers  succeed  in  arousing.  It  is  astonishing  through  what 
a  range  they  play  upon  the  soul's  susceptibility  to  terror. 
The  emotions  to  which  our  spirits  are  subject  during  a  perusal 
of  these  books  vary  from  the  mere  thrill  of  weird  pleasure 
inspired  by  "Monk"  Lewis's  Spirit  of  the  Frozen  Ocean,  to  the 
horror  of  physical  repulsion  occasioned  by  the  brute  violence 
of  Maturin's  mob  scene.  The  Inquisition,  convent  horrors, 
the  foulness  of  prison  and  hospital,  the  ravages  of  tempest 
and  violent  men,  alike  stir  our  susceptibilities  of  fea'r  and 
pity.  These  material  terrors,  however,  are  commonly  sub- 
sidiary to  the  main  purpose.  They  are  intended  to  subdue 
the  soul  of  hero  and  reader  alike  into  tremulous  readiness  for 
the  ghostly  experiences.  We  shall  see  later  how  this  artistic 
subservience  is  sometimes  violated  by  the  brutality  of  Lewis 
and  the  morbidness  of  Maturin.  Likewise  we  shall  see  how 
the  terror  is  furnished  largely  by  the  dangers  and  horrors  of 
adventure  and  physical  phenomena  to  the  almost  total 
exclusion  of  the  supernatural.  The  omission  of  this  seem- 
ingly essential  ingredient,  however,  does  not  at  all  exclude 
these  novels  from  the  Terror  Class,  since  it  is  evidently 
omitted  with  the  greatest  regret  by  the  writers,  who,  fully  in 
sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  the  other  terrorists,  are  mani- 
festly pining  for  a  ghost  or  two.  The  supernatural  is 
omitted  only  in  obedience  to  a  stern  exigency  of  the  occa- 


6  The  Tales  of  Terror 

sion — which  exigency  will  be  later  discussed  in  its  connec- 
tion. 

The  novels  of  the  Terror  School  will  divide  themselves, 
for  our  purpose,  into  three  classes :  First,  the  so-called  Con- 
ventional novels  beginning  with  Walpole  and  culminating  in 
Mrs.  Radclifre.  Second,  the  Reactionary  novels,  such  as 
Beckford's  Vathek  and  Brown's  Wieland.  Third,  the  germ 
of  the  Historical  novel,  such  as  Leland's  Longsword  and  Lee's 
Recess. 

It  is  well,  at  this  point,  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  we 
have,  in  this  paper,  limited  ourselves  either  to  the  few  great 
novelists  of  this  school,  or  to  those  representative  members 
of  it  who  show  some  distinct  tendency  conducive  to  its  gen- 
eral evolution.  With  imitators,  even  so  successful  a  one  as 
Roche,  we  are  compelled  through  lack  of  space  to  have 
nothing  to  do.  We  must  even  omit  with  regret  from  the 
second  section  so  brilliant  a  success  as  Mrs.  Shelley's  Frank- 
enstein, since  its  distinctly  reactionary  tone  had  been  antici- 
pated by  writers  necessarily  discussed. 

I.       THE    CONVENTIONAL    NOVELS 

WE  WILL  first  deal  with  the  Conventional  Novels.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  that  Horace  Walpole's  reaction  of  feeling 
toward  things  mediaeval  was  as  timorously  manifested  in  lit- 
erary form  as  were  all  other  tendencies  toward  emancipation 
from  classical  fetters.  He  did,  indeed,  make  one  bold  break 
in  the  architectural  line  by  the  building  of  his  Gothic  castle 
at  Strawberry  Hill.  The  summer  whim  of  a  man  like  Wal- 
pole, however,  could  not  challenge  severe  criticism.  It  was 
quite  another  matter  to  join  himself  formally  with  the  bud- 
ding literary  sect  of  Romanticists.  It  was  years,  therefore, 
before  he  ventured  to  dream  his  castle  of  Strawberry  Hill 
into  Otranto,  and  even  then  he  published  it  as  a  manuscript 
he  had  found  by  chance,  and,  until  its  success  was  assured, 
refused  to  acknowledge  his  paternity  to  this  wild-brain  child. 
The  enthusiastic  reception  of  this  absurd  book  shows  more 
,  /effectively  than  any  other  symptom  the  growing  eagerness  of 
the  people  for  escape  from  the  matter-of-fact  and  common- 
place; while  the  delight  with  which  even  Gray  welcomed  its 


The  Tales  of  Terror  7 

very  clumsy  ghosj,  demonstrates  conclusively  the  more  sig- 
nificant fact  thatf_Literature  itself  was  weary  of  the  cold  day- 
light so  long  reflected  on  its  pages) 

The  preface  to  this  pioneer  novel  of  Walpole's  contains, 
among  other  interesting  things,  a  statement  of  the  author's 
intention  to  produce  a  work  which  will  unite  features  of 
the  mediaeval  Romances  of  Chivalry  with  those  of  mod- 
ern novels.  In  this  ambitious  endeavor  Walpole  and  his 
followers  failed  most  signally.  The  adventures  of  the 
unfortunate  Matilda  in  Otranto  certainly  do  not  smack  of 
modern  life;  while  a  glance  into  Huon  of  Burgundy,  for 
instance,  makes  it  impossible  for  us  to  regard  Walpole's 
resolution  seriously.  A  ponderous  magic  helmet  dashed 
down  at  inconvenient  moments  is  a  poor  substitute  for  the 
enchantment,  airy  as  thistle-down,  which  floats  through 
mediaeval  lore.  In  the  one,  Oberon's  fairies  dance  through 
elf-charmed  woods.  In  the  other,  sheeted  ghosts  stalk 
through  vaulted  dungeons.  The  Romances  are  bewitched; 
the  Tales  are  haunted. 

Again,  the  moral  tone  is  different.  In  the  Romances  the 
hero  indulges  in  the  most  shocking  intrigues,  generally  with 
the  wife  of  his  friend  or  relative.  The  maiden  woos  the 
favored  knight  with  the  utmost  candor,  even  arranging  little 
social  games  of  chess  for  the  most  scandalizing  stakes.  At 
all  these  somewhat  appalling  love  episodes  the  author  and 
all  concerned  look  on  apparently  with  the  most  placid 
approval.  In  the  Tales,  on  the  other  hand,  we  shall  see  that 
the  moral  tone  is  on  the  whole  high. 

The  styles  of  these  two  departments  of  literature  are 
strikingly  alike.  The  Romance  runs  along  like  a  child's  fairy 
tale  with  an  epic  simplicity.  The  knight  starts  out  any  morn- 
ing knowing  that  he  may  be  turned  into  a  dwarf  or  a  dragon 
or  a  dozen  different  things  before  night.  He  takes  it  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course.  So  does  his  chronicler.  Neither  of  them  troubles 
himself  in  the  very  least  as  to  whether  the  victim  deserves 
such  a  fate.  There  is  too  much  marvel  still  ahead  for  much 
reflection.  The  style  of  the  Tales,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
labored  and  self-conscious.  Through  all  the  cavalier's 
adventures  the  shadow  of  his  creator  stalks  beside  him.  The 
mental  attitude  of  the  early  chronicler  imparts  a  charm  to 


8  The  Tales  of  Terror 

his  work  which  his  imitator  completely  lacks.  He  does  not 
)j  care  at  all  how  his  hero  appears.  Neither  does  his  hero. 
This  lack  of  self-consciousness  imparts  to  him  the  grace  of  a 
rollicking  child;  and  we  are  equally  pleased  at  the  vocif- 
erous abandon  with  which  the  redoubtable  Huon,  caught  in 
the  enchanted  forest,  sobs  out  his  fear  of  the  elf  Oberon,  and 
with  the  delightful  pluck  with  which  he  afterwards  accosts 
that  fairy.  The  heroes  of  Walpole  and  Radcliffe  would  have 
scorned  any  such  exhibition  of  weakness.  At  the  approach 
of  danger  they  strike  an  attitude,  call  on  God  and  their  lady, 
and  plunge  into  it,  looking  around  immediately  for  approval. 
Personally,  we  prefer  Huon's  panic  to  Vivaldi's  posing.  But 
one  must  read  for  himself  the  old  Romancers  to  perceive 
how  entirely  Walpole  and  his  followers  failed  in  this  portion 
of  their  task.  Their  work  no  more  resembles  their  model 
than  blood-stained  armor  resembles  airy  gauze — or  restless 
ghosts,  dancing  fairies, — or  dungeon  horrors,  moonlit  witch- 
ery. 

Before  tracing  through  these/Conventional  Terror  Tales 
&  their  all-important  element, — thai  of  the  supernatural) — and 
pointing  out  certain  individual  peculiarities  of  each  repre- 
sentative novelist,  we  will  touch  a  moment  upon(two  charac- 
\  teristics  of  the  whole  class.  v  First,  the  stilted  moral  tone; 
I  second,  the  stock  characters.)  Concerning  the  first  point, 
\  we  will  not  pause  over  the  fact  that  virtue  is  painted  very 
white  indeed  and  vice  very  black.  The  persecuted  maiden 
and  the  heavy  villain  are  familiar  to  all  readers.  We  would 
rather  call  attention  to  the  manner  in  which  our  authors 
strive  to  triple-guard  our  morality  by  saving  even  our 
notions  of  conventional  propriety  from  the  slightest  shock. 
They  chaperone  us  and  their  characters  with  the  utmost 
strictness.  Mrs.  Radcliffe  is  a  very  Dame  Grundy  in  this 
respect.  She,  like  Walpole  and  like  her  predecessors,  is  con- 
stantly haunted  by  fear  of  unseemly  situations.  One  ludi- 
crous incident  will  illustrate  many.  In  Udolpho,  in  the  mid- 
night gloom,  Emily's  persecutor  crept  up  to  her  turret  cham- 
ber on  ill  designs  intent.  The  situation  is  cleverly  worked 
up.  A  tremor  of  terror  is  on  us,  as  the  villain  steals  softly 
up  through  vaulted  corridor  and  spiral  staircase.  As  we 
think  of  the  maiden  lying  white-robed  and  unconscious  in 


The  Tales  of  Terror  9 

the  canopied  bed,  we  long  madly  for  some  miraculous  ap- 
pearance of  the  faithful  Valancourt.  Slowly  the  recreant 
knight  steals  up  through  the  last  spiral  staircase  to  the 
maiden's  door.  He  tries  the  latch!  It  yields!  Good 
heavens!  Will  Valancourt  get  there  in  time?  The  villain 
creeps  along  through  the  dim  apartment,  his  distorted 
shadow  crouching  behind  him.  He  has  reached  the  bed,  he 
has  pushed  aside  the  curtains.  Ye  gods !  What  happens  now? 
Does  Emily,  awaking,  spring  to  her  feet  and  stand  before 
him  like  a  strong  white  angel,  causing  him  to  crouch  and 
quiver  before  the  august  glory  of  her  womanhood?  Not  at 
all.  At  this  overwhelming  moment  Mrs.  Radcliffe  steps 
forward  and  gravely  announces,  "Fortunately  Emily  had  not 
undressed  before  retiring  for  the  night."  Heaven  be  praised ! 
To  be  sure  there  is  no  earthly  reason,  apparently,  why  Emily 
should  not,  on  this  particular  occasion,  have  made  her  usual 
preparations  for  bed.  But  that  is  not  the  point.  The  situa- 
tion is  saved.  The  ensuing  scene  proceeds  as  decorously  as 
an  afternoon  tea.  Wandering  through  these  pages  we  watch 
many  a  sweetheart  borne  by  gallant  cavalier  from  the  midst 
of  flaming,  falling  rafters;  but  never  does  the  author  fail 
to  take  time  to  assure  us,  as  in  Deloraine,  of  the  scrupulous 
care  with  which  she  has  managed  to  complete  her  toilet. 
Not  always  in  her  right  mind,  she  is  invariably  clothed. 

Nof  content,  however,  with  allowing  these  models  of  pro- 
priety to  impress  their  own  lesson,  the  author  is  constantly 
on  hand  with  precept  upon  precept.  There  is  one  place  in 
Deloraine,  where  Godwin  actually  leaves  a  girl  whirling  over 
the  edge  of  a  precipice,  presumably  to  describe  circles  in 
midair,  while  he  dilates  for  several  pages  on  the  advantage  of 
self-control  under  such  circumstances. 

In  turning  to  our  second  point,  that  of  the  stock  charac^X 
ters  with  their  inevitable  result  of  wire-pulled  plot,  we  are  \ 
reminded   of   Pope's   recipe   for   an    epic   poem, — "Take   a  / 
storm,  a  dream,  six  battles,  three  sacrifices,  funeral  games, 
a  dozen  gods  in  two  divisions,  shake  together  until  there 
arises   the   froth   of  a  lofty   style."     We   might   follow   his 
method  and  give  a  formula  for  the  production  of  a  Con- 
ventional Terror  Tale, — a  storm,  a  ghost,  a  maiden,  a  cas- 
tle.    In  otjier  words,  there  are  certain  elements  which  must 


io  The  Tales  of  Terror 

\  '- 

enter  into  a  story  of  this  kind.     They  are  as  necessary  as 

lettuce,  vinegar,  oil,  and  pepper  to  salad.  There  may  or 
may  not  be  chicken  or  shrimps,  but  the  foundation  remains 
the  same. 

These  ingredients,  however,  are  mixed  in  various  propor- 
tions and-  forms.  Sometimes  they  are  poured  in  en  masse, 
sometimes  the  merest  flavor  is  perceptible.  Take  the  marrtoU 
plotting  parent  for  instance.  He  is  not  always  the  maiden's 
father  saying,  "Girl,  behold  your  future  lord,"  and  pointing 
to  some  despicable  specimen  of  humanity.  Sometimes,  as 
in  TheAlbigenses,  this  inconvenient  relative  has  been  deceased 
for  many  years,  but  has  complicated  things  for  the  young 
couple  by  imposing  on  his  infant  son  the  amiable  vow  of 
exterminating  root  and  branch  the  family  of  his  hereditary 
enemy.  This  is  eminently  embarrassing  for  Paladour,  who 
discovers  on  his  wedding-night  that  his  beautiful  bride  is 
the  sole  survivor  of  his  father's  foe.  He  avoids  his  little  task 
by  plunging  the  dagger  into  his  own  heart  in  the  presence 
of  his  beloved,  who  at  once  follows  his  example  by  stabbing 
herself.  They  are  found  bathed  in  gore,  and  dreadful  con- 
fusion ensues.  Both  survive,  however,  but  the  vow  still 
holds  Paladour,  whose  wife,  whom  he  thinks  dead,  follows 
him  to  camp  in  the  disguise  of  a  page.  And  what  would 
have  happened,  when  she  disclosed  herself  to  him,  heaven 
knows,  except  that  Count  Raymond,  Paladour's  father,  who 
was  not  dead  at  all,  rushed  in  at  an  opportune  moment  and 
absolved  him  from  his  vow ! 

Another  important  stock  character  in  these  novels  is  the 
I  servants.  Most  of  these  servants,  with  their  exasperating 
'talkativeness,  are  mere  feeble  echoes  of  Shakespeare's 
"Nurse,"  and  dreadful  bores,  always  excepting  Pietro  in  The 
Italian.  He  is  delicious  from  beginning  to  end!  Any  one 
wanting  a  glimpse  of  the  vein  of  catchy  cleverness  too  often 
smothered  in  Mrs.  Radcliffe  by  her  pompous  machinery,  has 
only  to  seize  on  this  book  and  become  acquainted  with 
Pietro. 

As  for  the  heroine,  poor  girl,  she  has  been  so  mercilessly 
made  fun  of  from  Mr.  George  Meredith  down,  that  we  will, 
for  the  most  part,  pass  her  over,  except  to  say  that  possibly 
these  milk-and-water  girls  are  to  be  preferred  to  the  hectic 


4^0* 


The  Tales  of  Terror  n 

heroine  of  modern  sensationalism.  The  insipid  peach  is, 
after  all,  better  and  sweeter  than  the  one  at  whose  heart  a 
worm  is  gnawing,  however  dazzlingly  the  phosphorescent 
radiance  of  decay  may  spread  itself  over  the  surface.  But 
this  is  far  from  the  point.  The  supernal  goodness  of  our 
Matildas  interest^  us  little.  Some  exhibition  of  that  other 
quality,  supposed  in  some  flippant  minds  to  accompany 
supernal  goodness,  namely,  hopeless  stupidity,  seems  to 
deserve  attention.  These  girls  seem  utterly  lacking  in  com- 
mon sense.  For  one  thing,  they  inherit  from  Mrs.  Radcliffe 
and  her  School  an  incredible  reverence  for  the  conventions. 
There  is  Julia,  for  instance,  in  The  Sicilian  Romance.  Her 
lover  had  discovered  her  fleeing  from  the  power  of  an 
enraged  and  all-powerful  nobleman.  As  the  sun  rises  on 
them  he  pleads  marriage  in  a  neighboring  monastery,  as  a 
means  of  checkmating  the  nobleman  and  ensuring  their  hap- 
piness. Delay  means  eternal  separation,  for  the  Count  is 
close  behind  them.  Considering  the  fact  that  she  has  been 
wandering  around  the  woods  all  night  with  this  young  man, 
one  would  conclude  that  Julia's  pink-and-white  propriety 
would  lead  her  to  consider  this  the  only  respectable  thing  to 
do.  But  no!  Her  brother  has  recently  been  killed  by  ban- 
dits, and  Julia  insists,  before  she  will  consent  to  think  of 
marriage,  on  observing  the  conventional  period  of  mourning 
at  a  spot,  by  the  way,  within  perfectly  easy  reach  of  the  indig- 
nant and  all-powerful  nobleman ! 

If  our  heroine's  scruples  are  exasperating  to  an  honorable 
lover,  her  utter  lack  of  tact  in  dealing  with  her  various 
assortment  of  brutal  captors  is  perfectly  maddening.  In  The 
Albigenses  Isabella  of  Court enaye  is  carried  off  by  an  outlaw. 
Now  this  outlaw  wants  to  marry  her,  and  is  inclined  to  treat 
her  with  the  utmost  gentleness,  hoping  that  time  and  reflec- 
ton  will  bend  her  to  his  purpose.  Considering  the  fact  that 
Isabella  knows  that  her  lover  is,  at  that  moment,  in  the  castle 
plotting  her  escape,  it  is  obviously  her  policy  to  temporize 
and  conciliate.  Is  that  her  course?  Not  at  all.  We  must 
blame,  yet  we  cannot  but  admire,  the  reckless  hauteur  with 
which  the  highborn  maiden  repels  the  advances  of  the  name- 
less adventurer.  But  when  it  comes  to  calling  him  the  scum 
of  the  earth,  and  treating  him  generally  with  a  scornful  con- 


12  The  Tales  of  Terror 

tempt  which  would  make  a  worm  turn,  we  feel  that  any  self- 
respecting  robber  must  have  felt  impelled  to  violent  meas- 
ures. And  when  she  actually  disclosed  the  fact  that  his  other 
captive  is  her  lover,  we  lose  all  patience  and  willingly  con- 
sign them  both  to  the  tomb.  Instead,  they  escape  down  a 
rope  ladder  which  conveniently  hooks  itself  to  the  window 
by -some  means  or  other. 

It  is,  however,  in  their  relations  to  each  other  that 
heroine  and  hero  shine  out  in  their  full  lustre.  We  have 
spoken,  in  another  place,  of  the  contrast  between  these 
stories  and  the  old  Romances  of  Chivalry.  In  these  latter, 
there  is  a  simple  expression  of  this  elemental  passion  which, 
though  it  may  at  times  repel  our  finer  senses,  is  yet  natural 
and  inevitable.  Rymenhild  and  Horn,  Esclaramonda  and 
Huon,  may  at  times  be  somewhat  indecent;  but  they  are  at 
least  impulsive,  simple,  and  straightforward.  And  when,  for 
some  reason,  the  chronicler  has  chosen  to  curb  his  looseness 
of  expression,  the  scenes  are  really  lovely.  That  for  instance 
between  Arthur  and  Guenever  in  the  Romance  of  Merlin. 
Compare  with  it  the  meeting  between  Isabella  and  Sir  Pala- 
dour  in  The  Albigenses.  The  two  scenes  are  alike  in  setting, 
each  taking  place  in  a  banquet  hall  of  the  old  feudal  castle. 
The  gorgeous  Lady  of  Courtenaye,  on  her  chair  of  state, 
surrounded  by  all  the  pomp  of  feudal  magnificence,  forms  a 
heartless  contrast  to  Guenever  as  she  stands  in  simple  garb 
and  attitude  offering  the  wine-cup  to  her  father's  deliverer; 
while  Paladour's  high-flown  language  is  absurd  compared 
to  the  hot  words  bursting  from  Arthur's  heart. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  statements  that  a  profound 
\  knowledge  of  human  nature  is  not  characteristic  of  the 
novels  we  are  studying.  It  is  pre-eminently  a  work  of  plot 
and  machinery.  The  characters  are  little  wooden  men  and 
women  such  as  we  used  to  play  with  in  our  Noah's  arks,  and 
expose  at  pleasure  to  the  ferocity  of  the  tigers  or  bears  or 
any  other  of  Noah's  proteges.  We  used  to  wonder  that 
they  remained  just  as  yellow  and  hard  and  smiling  as  ever  in 
face  of  such  horrid  perils !  And  thus  it  is  with  the  characters 
moving  through  these  pages.  They  are  the  mere  sport^  of 
circumstances.  The  author  throws  them  into  dungeons, 
tortures,  and  manifold  dangers.  They  weep  or  smile  as  he 


The  Tales  of  Terror  13 

pulls  the  string.  The  story  does  not  take  its  trend  because 
the  heroine,  forsooth,  insists  upon  acting  out  the  faith  that 
is  in  her  in  spite  of  fate.  She  fits  herself  to  fate  like  jelly  to 
a  mold.  Such  pliancy  was  necessary  to  this  form  of  fiction. 
Once  put  into  it  a  bustling,  everyday  girl  like  Austen's  Eliza- 
beth Bennett,  and  the  mold  would  have  broken  into  a  thou- 
sand pieces. 

These  characteristics,  then, — an  unsuccessful  attempt  at  \ 
mediaeval  local  coloring,  a  stilted  moral  tone,  and  the  inevi-  1 
table  combination  of  stock  characters  and  wire-pulled  plot,— 
we  take  to  be  three  main  characteristics  of  the  Conventional 
class  of  Terror  Tales.     In  their  consideration  we  have  left 
out,  for   the    moment,  the    predominating    element    of    the  i 
supernatural.     We  will  now  glance  into  the  separate  novels.  J 

The  Castle  of  Otranto  is  interesting  not  from  any  merit  of 
its  own,  but  from  its  position  as  first  in  the  field.  Consider- 
ing it  as  pioneer,  its  comprehensiveness  of  scope  is  remark- 
able, (in  the  preface  it  explicitly  strikes  the  keynote  of  the 
School.  "Terror,"  we  are  told,  "is  the  author's  principal  ^ 
Engine."  /  All  the  ingredients  of  which  we  have  already 
spoken  find  their  place  in  this  concoction,  though  so  badly 
mixed  and  tempered  as  to  render  it  arid  and  insipid.  The 
Gothic  castle,  with  its  necessary  equipment  of  trap  doors, 
secret  passages,  haunted  chambers,  looms  up  as  a  model  for 
all  ensuing  architecture.  Storms  come  when  called.  The 
ghost  makes  his  portentious  debut — a  genuine  ghost,  no  j 
sheet  and  pillow-case  affair.  Helmet  and  statue  shiver  at 
the  touch  of  magic,  and  pictures  walk  around. 

The  supernatural  element  in  this  book  is  so  clumsily  pal- 
pable that  Clara  Reeve,  who,  in  1777,  published  her  English 
Baron,  while  announcing  her  book  as  the  offspring  of 
Otranto,  condemned  Walpole's  extravagance  and  declared 
her  intention  of  keeping  this  ghostly  element  within  reason- 
able bounds.  Such  moderation  hints  vaguely  at  Mrs.  Rad- 
cliffe  and  becomes  Reeve's  chief  merit.  In  this  she  shows 
advance  on  Walpole.  He  strives  to  excite  our  fear  by  bona 
fide  ghosts  and  magical  machinery.  Where  Reeve  follows 
his  lead  she  is  not,  perhaps,  so  extravagantly  absurd,  but  she 
is  at  least  stupid  and  powerless. 


14  The  Tales  of  Terror 

But  on  occasion  she  has  soared  above  him  to  a  point  he 
never  dreamed  of.  She  touches  deftly,  at  least  once,  on  the 
human  soul  quivering  beneath  the  impulse  of  vague,  appre- 
hensive fear.  Walpole's  sluggish  heroes  needed  a  real  bogy 
to  stir  their  nerves.  The  picture  Reeve  draws  of  Edmund 
wandering  at  midnight  through  the  apartments  of  the  Old 
East  Wing,  through  the  rafters  of  which  the  rain  forced  its 
way,  and  along  the  passages  of  which  the  wind  moaned  and 
sighed,  reached  a  high  degree  of  artistic  excellence.  Com- 
pared to  it,  the  ready-made  ghosts  Walpole  sets  up  seem  vul- 
gar and  absurd.  At  this  moment,  at  least,  Reeve  has  touched 
\with  successful  ringer  the  vast  field  of  Subjective  Terror  in 
which  Radcliffe  was  to  achieve  her  fame.  It  is  provoking 
that  this  admirable  little  scene  serves  merely  as  prelude  to  an 
absurd  visitation,  in  which  Edmund's  deceased  mother 
administers  to  him  and  to  the  reader  several  pages  of  stupid 
advice. 

Both  Reeve  and  Walpole  were  enthusiastically  received 
by  the  public  and  boasted  numerous  disciples,  whom,  for 
lack  of  time  or  merit,  we  shall  pass  over.  We  turn  at  once 
tq(_Mrs.  Radcliffe,  who  published  her  first  novel  in  1791,  and* 
in  whom  the  so-called  Conventional  type  of  Terror  Tale  cul- 
minated.) 

Mrs.  Radcliffe's  work  is  marked  by  a  change  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  supernatural.  ^Her  predecessors,  Reeve  and', 
Walpole,  marshalled  an  imposing  line  of  phantoms  upon 
jl  which  to  hang  the  terror  of  their  tales.  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  on 
I/the  other  hand,  traces  to  natural  phenomena  most  of  her 
supernatural  appearances.)  This  has  been  by  some  consid-' 
ered  a  blemish.  She  has  been  accused  of  shams  and  decep- 
tion. It  is  hard  to  understand  this  objection.  The  strange 
ice-cold  Hand  that  seized  my  mother's  in  the  dark  hall  was 
no  less  thrilling  to  the  little  group  to  whom  I  was  telling  the 
story,  because  they  knew  beforehand  I  was  telling  the  truth. 
The  words,  "Asleep !  Asleep !  Asleep !"  low,  mysterious,  and 
awful,  which  floated  to  me  down  the  staircase  of  a  house 
recently  made  desolate  by  death,  curdled  my  blood  none  the 
less  because  my  common  sense  assured  my  affrighted  nerves 
that  the  phenomenon  must  be  explained. 


The  Tales  of  Terror  15 

This,  then,  seems  to  me  Mrs.  Rad  cliff  e's  signal  merit. 
She  marched  ahead  boldly  and  took  possession  of  the  field 
barely  hinted  at  by  Clara  Reeve.  Human  life  as  it  surges 
and  hums  in  the  active  world,  she  does  not  know.  The  pas- 
sions of  Love,  of  Hate,  of  Pride,  of  Avarice,  she  handles 
clumsily.  But  the  passion  of  Fear  she  does  know,  and  that\ 
so  thoroughly  that  she  scorns  any  extensive  use  of  terrors/ 
to  which  only  children  are  really  subject,  and  chooses  those 
which  may  justifiably  shake  the  strongest  nerves.  A  man 
wandering  through  con  vent-  vaults  at  midnight  may  well 
start  at  the  low  groan  behind  him,  even  though  it  be  but  the 
stifled  cry  of  a  tortured  prisoner;  and  a  girl  sitting  alone  at 
stormy  twilight  in  a  wind-swept  turret,  poring  over  weird 
pages  of  moth-eaten  manuscript,  would  be  stolid  indeed  if 
she  did  not  impute  some  sinister  meaning  to  the  creeping 
rustle  of  the  tapestry  at  her  shoulder. 

Thus  to  the  Gateway  of  the  varied  Realm  of 


Fe^rdo  we  see  Mrs.  Radcliffe  conducting  the  erratic  Genius  ' 
of  oar  novels,  and  it  was  perhaps  an_  inevitable  result  of  her 
determination  to  avoid  sheet  and  pillow-case  frauds,  that  we 
should  find  emphasized  in  her  books  the  element  of  material 
or  physical  terror.  So  long  as  ghosts  walked  at  pleasure, 
they  were  naturally  supposed  to  be  capable  of  supplying  the 
necessary  quota  of  thrills.  It  was  a  different  matter  when  it 
came  to  dealing,  for  the  most  part,  with  the  prepossessions 
of  a  soul.  The  writer  must  look  around  for  all  possible 
means  of  subduing  it  to  the  proper  key  of  tremulous  expec- 
tation. And  what  more  conducive  to  such  a  result  than  the 
varied  aspects  of  physical  suffering  touching  the  spirit 
through  a  series  of  quivering  nerves? 

Considering  the  time  in  which  these  stories  were  laid,  very 
obviously  the  tyrannous  power  of  church  and  prelate  lay 
easily  in  the  path  of  the  writer  who  was  seeking  for  scenes 
of  physical  oppression.  Mrs.  Radcliffe  seized  eagerly  on 
these  elements;  and  thus  it  was  that  the  convent  powers 
rose  imposingly  into  view,  and  that  the  dread  halls  of  the 
Inquisition  swung  back  their  heavy  doors  to  the  airy  touch 
of  imagination.  And  if  ever  a  suit  of  libel  is  justifiable, 
surely  the  venerable  Mother  Church  would  have  right  to 
bring  one  against  our  author  and  her  successors.  The  mon- 


1 6  The  Tales  of  Terror 

asteries  are  almost  uniformly  represented  as  the  abodes  of 
depravity,  and  we  give  our  heroine  up  for  lost  whenever  she 
comes  in  sight  of  one.  But  however  much  or  however  little 
foundation  there  may  be  for  these  representations  they  are 
certainly  used  to  great  effect.  Around  these  convent  walls 
hangs  a  veil  of  mystery  and  dread.  We  tremble  in  the 
wind-swept  turret  with  Ellena  as  she  sits  alone  in  the  twilight 
meditating  on  the  pit  yawning  at  her  feet  by  the  machina- 
tions of  the  treacherous  abbess.  We  shiver  in  the  midnight 
dusk  of  the  vast,  desolate  church  as  we  watch  the  penitent 
monk  prostrate  at  his  devotions.  We  enter  shudderingly  the 
dungeon  where  the  recreant  nun,  her  dead  baby  at  her 
breast,  lies  languishing,  shut  in  from  light  and  air.  /  In  all 
these  convent-glimpses,  Mrs.  Radcliffe  is  admirable^  But 
she  is  not  so  successful  in  her  dealing  with  the  Inquisition. 
/It  may  be  said,  however,  that,  on  the  whole,  she  succeeds 
*-  finely  in  her  use  of  this  element  of  physical  terror  which 
she  has  brought  from  comparative  insignificance  into  strik- 
ing prominence^)  And  to  her  great  credit  it  must  be  noted 
that  she  never  violates  its  artistic  subservience  to  the  super- 
natural element.  Later  writers,  we  shall  see,  revelled  in 
morbid  physical  horror  for  its  own  sake.  Of  this  outrage 
'  Mrs.  Radcliffe  is  never  guilty. 

Little  need  be  said  of  the  well-recognized  descriptive 
power  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe.  All  know  how  her  books  abound 
in  exquisite  landscapes,  notably  at  sunset.  Her  purples  and 
golds  and  blues  are  lovely,  and  tiresomely  familiar.  One 
phase,  or  rather  tendency,  of  this  descriptive  power,  how- 
ever, does  not  seem  to  have  been  sufficiently,  if  at  all,  recog- 
nized. It  is  a  tendency  which  dignifies  it  as  expression  does 
a  lovely  face. 

To  appreciate  fully  this  tendency  we  must  note  one  curi- 
ous fact,  namely,  that  our  old  poets  and  writers  as  a  rule 
shrank  from  the  more  savage  aspects  of  nature,  dwelling 
almost  uniformly  on  its  gentler  summer  side.  Shakespeare, 
to  be  sure,  heightened  the  horror  of  Lear's  madness  by  a 
tempest;  and  through  all  ages  writers,  including  our  Terror- 
ists, have  turned  to  good  account  in  terrific  situations  the 
power  of  the  stormy  elements.  But  these  were  not  regarded 
as  in  themselves  capable  of  affording  a  high  degree  of 


The  Tales  of  Terror  17 

aesthetic  pleasure.     It  remained  for  Shelley  and  his  age  to 
say,  "I  love  winds  and  waves  and  storms." 

Now  Radcliffe,  however  antiquated  in  other  respects, 
was  in  this  point  quite  up  to  date.  She  might  almost  be 
called  Wordsworthian.  Her  characters,  however  wooden,  are 
yet  possessed  of  "that  pervading  love  of  nature"  by  which 
the  Lake  Poet  meant  spiritual  sympathy  with  nature.  They 
are  filled  with  that  "extrinsic"  passion  for  nature  which  is, 
being  interpreted,  that  love  for  natural  phenomena  which  is 
not  limited  to  smooth  landscapes  and  sunny  aspects.  Emily 
in  Udalpho  and  Ellena  in  The  Italian,  when  carried  off  by 
enemies,  the  one  to  the  castle,  the  other  to  the  convent, 
passed  through  scenery  stupendous  and  awful  with  roaring 
torrent  and  beetling  crag.  One  would  suppose  that  these 
unhappy  girls,  forced  towards  unknown  horrors,  would  be 
depressed  by  the  gloomy  majesty  of  the  surrounding  land- 
scape. Not  at  all.  They  forget  their  troubles  as  they  gaze 
into  the  dizzy  ravines  and  up  to  the  towering  precipices, — 
scenery  such  as  older  writers  and  tourists  had  spoken  of 
with  half  impatient  horror,  and  about  which  Gray  had 
scarcely  dared  to  rave  for  fear  of  being  called  romantic,  a 
fear  which  is,  in  itself,  a  tribute  to  these  writers  as  evi- 
dencing a  tendency  in  them  toward  the  large  universal  love 
of  nature  to  ring  out  later  from  Wordsworth's  muse.  More 
than  this,  our  Ellena  and  Emily  gained  calmness  and  strength 
for  future  struggle  from  the  awful  majesty  of  mountains. 
We  can  imagine  the  austere  Lake  Poet,  shaking  his  head\ 
with  disgust  over  these  wild  novels,  surprised  into  an  approv-  I 
ing  nod  at  lighting,  in  these  scenes,  on  so  signal  an  illustra-  j 
tion  of  his  own  theory  of  a  spiritual  connection  between  the/ 
soul  of  man  and  of  nature. 

We  have  said  that  in  Radcliffe  the  Conventional  Terror 

/  novels  culminated.     The  unprecedented  popularity  of  her 

l  books  led  to  a  deluge  of  imitations  which  went  far  towards 

^^discountenancing  the  whole  School.     From  her  time  on, 

symptoms    of    reaction    begin    to    appear.     In    1797    Jane 

Austen  wrote  her  delicious  burlesque  on  the  Udolpho  novels, 

Northanger  Abbey.     The  fact  that  she  could  not,  during  her 

lifetime,  find  a  publisher  for  this  book  shows  that,  as  an 

expression  of  public  opinion,  it  was  premature.    While  Rad- 


i8  The  Tales  of  Terror 

cliffe  lived  and  wrote^the  reaction  was  slow  and  unobtrusive, 
making  itself  felt  rather  by  the  appearance  of  new  tendencies 
in  the  novels  of  the  School  than  in  open  expressions  of  dis- 
approval^ To  the  consideration  of  these  tendencies  we  now 
turn  our  attention. 

II.      THE    REACTIONARY    NOVELS 

THIS  class  of  novels  may  be  called  Reactionary,  because 
it  is  marked  by  more  or  less  revolt  against  the  Walpole-Rad- 
cliffe  machinery.  The  first  example  of  this  Reactionary  class 
appeared  while  the  old  Conventional  Novels  were  in  the  full 
blast  of  their  popularity — away  back  in  1777.  Beckford's 
Vathek,  in  its  bold  originality  and  distinctness  from  the  fash- 
ionable type,  was  a  child  born  before  its  time;  and  in  it 
appears  all  the  brilliant  quality  which  occasionally  accom- 
panies such  premature  birth.  Vathek  is  in  a  sense  the  master- 
piece of  the  whole  school. 

There  are  in  it  three  marked  points  of  departure  from  the 
old  type :  first,  an  entire  dropping  of  Gothic  mediaeval  color- j 
ing;  second,  the  introduction  of  genuine  humor;  third,  a 
glimpse  now  and  then  of  something  resembling  lifelike- 
ness  of  character.  Concerning  the  first  point,  it  need 
only  be  said  that  the  author  discards  entirely  Gothic  castles 
and  knights  and  the  rest  of  the  old  machinery,  and  sets  us 
down  in  the  midst  of  Dazzling  jQriental  scenes.  His  success 
in  this  line  is  evidenced  by  Byron's  dictum  that,  as  an  East- 
ern tale,  even  Rasselas  must  bow  before  it.  As  for  the  vein 
of  humor  hitherto  absent  from  the  Terror  Tales,  it  is  so 
subtile  and  delicious  that  any  quotation  is  impossible. 
Indeed,  so  delicate  is  this  humor,  that  we  question  how  large 
a  percentage  of  readers  would  be  much  affected  by  it.  But 
to  a  mind  susceptible  to  its  influence,  this  little  book  is  a 
spring  of  delfght.  The  half  page  describing  the  encounter 
between  Carathis  and  Evlis,  and  the  scrap  concerning  one  of 
the  Genii  who  played  the  flute,  are  good  tests  by  which  to 
discover  the  presence  or  absence  of  this  susceptibility. 

The  successful  bits  of  character-glimpses  deserve  especial 
notice.  It  must  not  be  for  a  moment  supposed  that  in  this 
fantastic  little  book  there  is  anything  like  a  successful  full- 


The  Tales  of  Terror  ig 

length  portrait.  But  there  is  here  and  there  an  approach  to 
reality,  which  is  more  than  can  be  said  for  previous  writers. 
Carathis,  for  instance,  is  more  than  impossibly  wicked.  But 
there  is  a  distinct  smack  of  life  in  the  nonchalant  manner  in 
which  she  carries  off  her  evil  deeds  and  spurs  on  her  vacil- 
lating kinsman.  Her  acts  are  incredibly  atrocious,  but  she 
goes  about  them  in  precisely  the  debonair  self-possessed 
spirit  of  an  unscrupulous  woman  of  the  world,  who  encoun- 
ters failure  cooly  enough,  confident  of  bringing  it  in  the  end 
to  success.  In  fact,  the  very  Genii  in  their  brisk  attendance 
on  their  special  charges,  and  their  helpful  little  ways  of  rais- 
ing castles  in  a  night,  are  far  more  characteristic  individuals 
than  any  who  have  hitherto  appeared  in  the  pages  of  the 
Terror  School.  \ 

One  minor  innovation  of  Beckford's  was  the  introduction 
of\the^jd^vil_v  Hitherto  it  was  only  the  spirits  of  just  men   • 
made  perfect  who  interfered  in  mundane  affairs.     We  shall 
see  how  popular  his  Satanic  Majesty  became  in  following 
novels. 

We  have  said  that  Vathek  was  an  instance  of  merely  indi- 
vidual revolt  from  the  Radcliffe  School.     The  man  who  first 
gave  expression  to  the  premonitory  symptoms  of  general 
uneasiness  appeared  some  seventeen  years  later.     It  was  the 
j  high-pressure  moral  tone  of  the  old  novels  that  was  too  much 
for  Lewis.     He  flew  straight  to  the  other  extreme,   and, 
still  holding  to  the  old  machinery  of  ghosts  and  Gothic  cas-\  ' 
ties,  published  what  has  been  justly  called  one  of  the  worst  \ 
books  in  the  English  language.     I  think  I  am  not  wrong  in 
saying  that  there  is  one  scene  in  The  Monk  which  must  cast    I 
a  deep  shadow  on  any  pure  spirit  who  has  once  gazed  upon 
it. 

Another  point  worthy  of  noticing  in  Lewis  is  the  undue 
emphasis  given  to  the  element^ of physical-terror.     We  have 
seen  how  in  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  hands  this  element  was  always  «y 
kept  in  artistic  subservience.     Lewis  is  the  first  who  handles     % 
material  horror  for  mere  love  of  it.    Indeed  we  may  say  that 
the  immorality  of  his  book  consists  in  the  brutal  frankness 
with  which  he  details  physical  outrages  worse  than  death. 
He  thus  strikes  a  new  key  for  following  writers.     Not  that 
any  other  of  them,  so  far  as  I  know,  actually  allows  this  ten- 


2O  The  Tales  of  Terror 

dency  to  sully  the  moral  purity  of  his  pages.  But  hencefor- 
ward we  shall  perceive  a  distinct  interest  in  personal  horror 
per  se  till,  in  Maturin,  it  reaches  a  point  well-nigh  intolerable. 

Lewis  likewise  emphasizes  the  more  sprightly  tone  of 
Vathek.  The  story  moves  at  a  more  rapid  pace  than  in  Rad- 
.eliffe's  pages.  The  language  of  Lorenzo  and  Raymond 
sounds  at  times  almost  like  modern  club  slang,  while  in  one 
scene  Agnes  chatters  like  an  up-to-date  society  girl.  Of 
course  such  a  modern  air  cannot  from  an  artistic  point  of 
view  be  justified  in  a  novel  laid  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Scott's 
magical  manner  of  imparting  vitality  to  figures  who  speak 
and  act  in  a  manner  entirely  in  keeping  with  the  age  in  which 
they  live,  is  far  better.  But  Lewis  cannot  be  blamed  for  not 
being  Scott;  and  he  at  least  deserves  credit  for  having,  in 
any  manner,  imparted  vivacity  to  the  ponderous  movement 
of  these  stories.  IX 

Lewis  follows  Beckford  in  his  interest  in  the  Infernal 

Powers.     He  seizes  on  the  old  legend  of  a  being  who  has 

sold  his  soul  to  the  devil,  and  works  it  with  considerable 

ingenuity,  though  not  with  the  wonderful  success  with  which 

'  Maturin,  years  later,  followed  him  along  the  sanie  line. 

In  the  same  year  with  The  Monk  appeared  a  book  which, 
though  it  cannot  be  properly  included  in  the  school  we  are 
studying,  yet  contained  many  elements  in  common  with  it; 
it  must  be  mentioned  in  this  connection  because  of  its  effect 
upon  an  able  writer  who  carried  the  influence  of  the  English 
Terror  Tales  into  American  literature — a  writer  who  was  in 
a  sense  the  precursor  of  Hawthorne.  This  book  is  Caleb 
Williams,  and  to  Caleb  Williams  surely  belongs  the  literary 
paternity  of  Edgar  Huntly,  Arthur  Mervyn,  and  most  of 
Charles  Brockden  Brown's  heroes. 

Never  was  the  influence  of  one  man  upon  another  more 
strongly  defined  than  in  the  case  before  us.  In  Edgar  Huntly 
the  hero  is  precisely  the  same  morbid,  super-sensitive  soul 
as  in  Caleb  Williams  and  Deloraine.  In  the  opening  chapter, 
he,  like  Caleb  and  Deloraine,  utters  the  most  extravagant 
self-denunciation.  Nothing  can  equal  his  abject  remorse.  We 
are  horrified !  This  man  must  at  the  very  least  have  slaugh- 
tered his  entire  family  in  their  beds!  We  discover  at  last 
that  he  has  merely  killed  his  enemy  in  the  very  clearest  case 


The  Tales  of  Terror  21 

of  self-defence.  All  the  principal  characters  in  Brown's 
novels,  Arthur  Mervyn  conspicuously,  are  possessed  of  the 
same  insatiable  curiosity  that  plunged  Caleb  into  his  scrapes; 
they  pry  into  people's  boxes  with  the  same  unscrupulous- 
ness,  and  tell  of  it  with  the  same  naivete. 

The  most  noticeable  point  in  Brown  is  the  manner  in 
which,  at  one  explicit  stroke  of  the  pen,  he  abolishes  much  of 
the  old  machinery  to  which  even  "Monk"  Lewis  had  clung. 
In  his  preface  toHuntly  he  says,  "One  merit  at  least  the  writer 
may  claim,  that  of  calling  up  the  passions  and  engaging  the 
sympathy  of  the  reader  by  means  hitherto  unemployed. 
Puerile  superstitions  and  exploded  manners,  Gothic  castles 
and  chimeras,  are  the  materials  usually  employed  for  such 
ends.  The  incidents  of  Indian  hostility  and  the  perils  of  the 
western  wilderness  are  far  more  suitable  for  a  native  of 
America.  These,  therefore,  are  in  part  the  ingredients  of 
this  tale,  and  these  he  has  been  ambitious  to  detail  in  vivid 
and  faithful  colors."  In  other  words,  Charles  Brockden 
Brown  has  removed  his  scenes  and  characters  from  old 
feudal  days  and  scenes,  and  planted  them  squarely  down  in 
the  America  of  his  own  generation.  His  heroes  are  no 
longer  mediaeval  knights,  but  modern  Americans.  What  a 
change !  From  what  resources  has  he  excluded  the  Engine 
of  Terror!  Ghosts  and  superstitions  may,  presumably, 
dwell  in  the  hoary  castles  of  Chivalry.  But  modern  scepti- 
cism has  refused  them  entrance  to  the  mansions  and  huts  of 
the  American  colonists.  What,  then,  shall  take  their  place? 
Brown  glances  back  at  the  subjective  tendency  that  marked 
Mrs.  Radcliffe's  work.  He  will  develop  it  to  perfection. 
His  field  shall  be  the  realm  of  the  psychical.  Psychical  phe- 
nomena shall  be  his  Terror-engine. 

Thus  it  is  that  we  find  no  ghosts  in  Brown's  books — not 
one  so  much  as  dares  to  show  his  head.  But  our  nerves  are 
not  calmed  by  this  circumstance.  We  would  rather  any 
day — or  night — encounter  a  good  old-fashioned"  apparition 
than  one  of  his  sleep-walkers  or  ventriloquists.  It  is  in  spe- 
cifically psychological  problems,  then,  that  Brown  is  chiefly 
interested.  Wieland  is  full  of  ventriloquism,  Huntly  of  som- 
nambulism. The  former  is  by  Far  the  more  powerful.  The 
fascination  of  the  story  lies  in  the  thrilling  effect  with  which 


22  The  Tales  of  Terror 

the  author  has  used  the  uncanny  power  which  forms  its 
motive.  From  the  moment  when,  on  the  stormy  night,  the 
tones  of  the  wife,  whom  he  knows  to  be  far  distant,  float 
weirdly  to  Wieland  up  the  wooded  slope,  our  attention  is 
held  and  bewildered.  The  soft  voice  which  thrills  in  on 
Clara  through  the  thunderous  twilight, — which  breathed  at 
j  her  pillow  at  midnight, — which  shrieked  at  her  very  ear  as 
i  she  was  making  her  way  up  the  dark  staircase,  touches  us 
•with  the  same  horror  that  enveloped  the  .haunted  girl.  The 
vface  revealed  to  her  in  the  flash  of  the  lamp  as  she  turns 
wildly,  "every  muscle  tense,  forehead  and  brow  drawn  into 
vehement  expression,  lips  stretched  as  in  the  act  of  shriek- 
ing, eyes  emitting  sparks,"  out-terrorizes  a  whole  phalanx 
of  ghosts.  An  indescribably  weird  effect  is  imparted  to  the 
scene  by  the  words,  "The  sound  and  the  vision  were  present 
and  departed  at  the  same  instant,  but  the  cry  was  blown  into 
my  very  ears  while  the  face  was  many  paces  distant !"  Edgar 
Huntly,  with  its  somnambulism,  is  not  equally  successful. 
The  first  appearance  of  the  sleep-walker  is  somewhat  im- 
pressive. But  this  auspicious  opening  is  a  promise  unful- 
filled. Clithero's  history  and  remorse  are  too  absurd,  and 
after  that  the  whole  book  resolves  itself  into  a  tale  of  Indian 
adventure,  which,  indeed,  in  its  prophecy  of  Cooper,  is  the 
most  interesting  part  of  the  story. 

Arthur  Mervyn,  a  story  of  the  Yellow  Fever  Plague  of 
1798  in  New  York,  gives  ample  scope  for  the  growing  inter- 
iest  in  physical  horrors  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  character- 
istic of  the  School  of  Terror.  Though  Brown  certainly 
dwells  far  too  much  on  this  physical  horror  for  its  own  sake, 
he  is  yet  eminently  skilful,  also,  in  using  it  justifiably  for  the 
artistic  enhancement  of  higher  sensations.  One  striking 
instance  of  his  power  in  such  combination  is  that  in  which 
the  apparition  appears  to  Arthur  as  he  stands  alone  in  the 
desolate  chambers  of  a  fever-smitten  house  from  which  all 
the  inhabitants  have  been  removed  for  burial.  "The  door 
opened,"  it  reads,  "and  a  figure  glided  in.  The  portmanteau 
dropped  from  my  hands,  and  my  heart's  blood  was  chilled. 
If  an  apparition  of  the  dead  were  possible,  and  that  possibility 
I  could  not  deny,  this  was  such  an  apparition.  A  hue  yel- 
lowish and  livid,  bones  uncovered  by  flesh,  eyes  ghastly,  hoi- 


The  Tales  of  Terror  23 

low,  and  woe-begone  and  fixed  in  an  agony  of  wonder  on 
me,  locks  matted  and  negligent,  constituted  the  vision  I  now 
beheld.  My  belief  in  somewhat  preternatural  in  this  appear- 
ance was  confirmed  by  recollection  of  resemblances  between 
these  features  and  those  of  one  that  was  dead."  Bear  in 
mind  that  we  have  been  prepared  for  this  appearance  by  fol- 
lowing Arthur  for  hours  through  the  streets  of  the  death- 
stricken  city,  that  the  damps  of  infection  and  disease  are 
rotting  the  very  walls  of  the  house  in  which  he  stands,  and 
the  reader  may  perhaps  gain  some  idea  of  the  shock  of  this 
sudden  appearance.  No  ghost  that  I  can  think  of  was  ever  j 
more  effective  than  the  ghastly  figure  of  this  plague-stricken 
man. 

Brown  served  as  a  channel  through  which  the  spirit  of 
the  Terror  School  flowed  into  American  literature.  His  red 
Indian  is  only  another  shape  of  the  wandering  terrors,  in  the 
form  of  bandits  and  outlaws,  who  pursue  adventurous 
knights  and  distressed  damsels  through  the  pages  of  the  older 
novels;  and  this  wild  man  of  the  woods  Brown  intro- 
duced into  literature  and  handed  down  to  Cooper.  The 
Coras  and  Alices  and  Heywoods  of  the  latter  novelist,  pur- 
sued through  forests  and  caves  by  the  savage  Hurons  with 
their  war  paint  and  tomahawks,  inspire  us  with  the  same 
sort  of  sympathy  with  which  we  accompanied  Radcliffe's 
Emilys  and  Julias  over  mountains  inhabited  by  bandits.  To 
be  sure,  the  wind  that  blows  through  Cooper's  forest  is  fresh 
and  exhilarating  and  very  different  from  the  artificial  atmos- 
phere of  Mrs.  Radcliffe's.  But  the  same  appeal  to  our  emo- 
tions of  fear  and  sympathy  is  evident.  As  for  Brown's 
Indian,  he  is  a  mere  lay  figure  compared  with  the  subtle  form 
gliding  through  Cooper's  pages.  But  the  panther  scene  in 
Huntly  is  worthy  of  anything  Cooper,  or  anybody  else,  ever 
wrote  in  the  wild  beast  line. 

In  Cooper,  then,  through  Brown,  we  see  culminating  the 
element  of  wild  outdoor  adventure  which  holds  a  not  incon- 
siderable place  in  the  novels  we  have  been  studying. 
Another  writer  of  far  greater  genius  followed  Brown  along 
another  line.  Hawthorne's  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  is, 
from  a  psychological  view,  the  descendant  of  Brown's  novels. 

We  have  seen  how  Brown  turned  away  from  the  palpable 


24  The  Tales  of  Terror 

absurdities  of  the  old  school  to  the  eerie  mysteries  of  mental 
phenomena.  Hawthorne  followed  his  lead.  The  problem 
of  mesmerism  is  airily  touched  in  the  novel  to  which  we  have 
referred. 

The  point  which  especially  strikes  us  in  Hawthorne's 
romance  is  that  this  problem  does  not,  after  Brown's  style, 
form  the  hinge  of  the  story.  It  is  used  here,  rather,  as  an 
airy  accompaniment,  a  strain  of  weird  music  breaking  now 
and  then  upon  our  ears  like  the  uncanny  melody  that  floated 
through  the  gloomy  gables  from  the  long-untouched  keys 
of  the  old  harpsichord;  or,  better,  the  whole  story  of  the 
Judge  and  Clifford  and  Hepzibah  is  only  a  parable  whose 
meaning  lies  in  the  essence  of  that  mysterious  power  which, 
years  and  years  before,  threw  a  curse  upon  their  line.  The 
persecution  of  Clifford  by  the  Judge, — his  dreary  imprison- 
ment on  a  false  accusation  in  which  consisted  the  Judge's 
hold  upon  him, — his  quivering  dread  when  at  last,  for  a 
moment,  his  tyrant  lifts  his  heavy  hand  and  lets  the  victim 
breathe  a  moment  in  free  sunshine, — his  wild  cry  at  the 
Judge's  approach,  "Hepzibah !  Hepzibah !  go  down  on  your 
knees  to  him,  kiss  his  feet,  entreat  him  not  to  come  in !  Oh 
let  him  have  mercy  on  me — mercy — mercy !" — his  mad  exul- 
tation at  the  Judge's  ghastly  death,  "As  for  us,  Hepzibah, 
we  can  dance  now,  sing,  laugh,  play,  do  what  we  will !  The 
weight  is  gone,  Hepzibah,  gone  off  this  weary  world,  and  we 
may  be  as  light  hearted  as  little  Phoebe  herself!" — all  this 
story  of  a  life's  bondage  to  another's  will  is  a  more  striking 
type  of  the  spiritual  fetters,  which,  by  a  mysterious  occult 
power,  one  soul  can  throw  over  another. 

It  is  in  this  handling  of  the  marvelous  as  an  accompani- 
ment to  the  story  rather  than  as  its  heart,  that  Hawthorne 
has  shown  his  peculiar  insight.  Hitherto  all  the  stories  along 
this  line  have  been  self-conscious  and  labored.  A  series  of 
sensations  is  expected  at  the  beginning  by  both  reader 
and  writer,  and  these  sensations  form  the  very  essence 
[of  the  tale.  For  the  purpose  of  arousing  bewilder- 
^rnent  and  awe,  the  authors,  as  a  rule,  throw  their  char- 
acters into  the  most  strained  and  unnatural  situations. 
Girls  are  sent  flying  around  through  woods  and  over 
mountains  in  search  of  adventures,  and  even  Brown 


The  Tales  of  Terror  25 

feels  obliged  to  call  in  the  Yellow  Fever  Plague.   Hawthorne 
saw  deeper.     He  understood  that  there  is  no  need  of  uncom- 
mon situations, — that  through  even  the  simplest  of  human] 
lives  there  runs  a  strain  of  mystery.     Prosaic  little  Phoebe, 
working  in  the  garden  among  common-place  flowers  and 
vegetables,  is  conscious  of  strange  terror  as  the  Family  Curse 
threatens  her  for  a  moment  from  the  eyes  of  the  young 
artist.     Poor  old  Hepzibah  goes  about  her  round  of  daily 
drudgery  as  nurse  and  shopwoman;    but  over  her  from  the 
gables  of  the  old  New  England  house  fall  shadows  and  whis-. 
pers  from  the   past.     In  'short,   Hawthorne's   alchemy   has  \ 
transmuted  the  palpable  terrors  of  former  writers  into  that  \ 
subtle  general  atmosphere  of  mystery  and  awe  which,  to  the  / 
thoughtful  mind,  pervades  all  human  life.     Into  such  actual 
relation  to  life  itself  has  Hawthorne  succeeded  in  raising  the 
eerie  element  of  Psychological  terror  which  seemed,  in  other 
hands,  destined  only  for  a  tool  of  literary  sensation.     In  him 
culminated  this  element  of  Psychological  terror,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  ready-made  ghosts  of  Reeve  and  Walpole. 

III.       THE    NOVELS    CONTAINING    THE    GERM    OF    HISTORICAL 

FICTION 

An  interesting  article  by  Mr.  Saintsbury  in  Macmillan's 
Magazine,  August,  1894,  demonstrates  the  fact  that  the  birth 
of  the  Historical  Novel  proper  is  directly  due  to  two  tenden- 
cies of  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century:  first,  that 
which  labored  for  a  wider,  more  accurate  knowledge  of  his- 
torical facts,  under  the  inspiration  of  Hume,  Gibbon,  and 
Robertson;  and  second,  that  which  sought  to  revive  romantic 
interest  in  the  customs  and  life  of  former  ages.  Saintsbury 
goes  so  far  as  to  say,  "When  in  very  different  ways  Walpole, 
Percy,  and  Gray  with  many  others,  excited  curiosity  about 
the  incidents,  manners,  and  literature  of  former  times,  they 
made  the  Historical  Novel  inevitable." 

From  this  point  of  view  it  must  at  once  be  seen  that  the 
works  embodying  an  element  essential  to  so  important  a 
development  of  Prose  Literature  contains  for  the  student  an 
interest  disproportionate  to  its  intrinsic  value.  Authentic 
historical  facts  could  be  drawn  from  the  great  trio  of  histo- 

^. 

P^ 


26  The  Tales  of  Terror 

rians.  But  the  attempt  to  vivify  the  past,  to  make  us  breathe 
its  airs,  to  realize  its  sensations,  all  this  was  first  clumsily 
attempted  in  the  work  before  us. 

From  this  point  of  view,  then,  all  these  Romantic  Terror 

/Tales  may  be  said  to  contain  seed  of  the  Historical  Novel. 

*  In  one  group  of  them,  however,  the  groping  effort  towards 
Scott  is  so  much  more  labored  and  self  conscious,  that  it 
seems,  of  itself,  to  divide  them  from  the  rest  into  a  distinct 
germinal  class. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the  first  effort  along  this  line 
occurred  two  years  before  The  Castle  of  Otranto.  But  for 
one  important  omission,  this  little  book,  Longsword,  might 

^seem  justly  to  claim  Otranto9  s  pioneer  position.  So  impor- 
tant is  this  omission,  however,  that  it  leaves  Walpole's  pres- 
tige unchallenged.  Though  he  writes  in  the  very  spirit  of 
the  Terrorists,  it  is  evident  that  Leland  felt  himself  under 
restraint.  Having  chosen  really  historical  personages  for 
his  subjects  he  evidently  made  them  the  victims  of  super- 
natural experiences  for  fear  of  discrediting  the  whole  story. 
It  is  apparent  in  more  than  one  place  how  the  author  chafed 
under  this  restriction.  A  ghost  now!  How  well  it  would 
have  suited  that  dismal  dungeon  scene,  and  how  effectively 
it  would  have  glided  along  that  dim  corridor  before  Regin- 
ald's guilty  eyes!  Indeed  so  entirely  is  the  book  in  the 
spirit  of  our  School,  so  evidently  does  the  author  regret  his 
enforced  limitation,  and  so  completely  do  all  other  essential 
ingredients  make  their  appearance,  that  it  would  be  absurd 
to  deny  its  claim  to  membership  in  the  Terror  School  on  the 
ground  of  the  omission  of  the  supernatural,  just  as  it  would 
be  absurd  to  allow  it  in  spite  of  this  omission,  to  usurp  Wai- 
pole's  novel  as  pioneer.  Here  the  Romance  heroine  makes 
her  first  appearance,  of  course  in  tears.  Her  gallant  cavalier 
stalks  over  land  and  sea,  performing  all  manner  of  feats. 
The  young  woman,  fallen  into  the  clutches  of  villainy,  bullies 
her  keeper  until  we  feel  almost  sorry  for  him,  and  though  for 
a  time  vice  triumphs  over  virtue  to  an  alarming  extent,  in 
the  end  we  are  soothed  and  delighted  by  seeing  the  two 
villains  strung  up  on  the  same  tree  with  a  rapidity  well  cal- 
culated to  take  away  one's  breath. 


The  Tales  of  Terror  27 

Leland's  novel,  then,  acquires  its  peculiar  tone  by  an 
attempt  to  depict  not  only  the  local  coloring  of  an  historical 
period,  but  events  and  circumstances  in  the  lives  of  actual 
personages.  Two  points  in  its  preface  are  worthy  of  notice. 

One  principle  which  he  lays  down  separates  his  book 
from  any  previous  work  along  the  same  line.  Such  previous 
work  had  been,  in  a  manner,  a  fraud.  Tales  of  adventure 
had  been  deliberately  intended  to  deceive  the  public.  Sir 
John  Mandeville's  Travels  are  full  of  impossible  incidents 
which  he  gravely  attempts  to  foist  upon  the  people.  Robin- 
son Crusoe  is  presented  to  the  world  as  an  authentic  person- 
age; and  Defoe's  Memoirs  of  a  Cavalier  have  the  same  marks 
of  artifice.  Leland  works  a  new  vein.  He  says  frankly, 
"The  outlines  of  the  following  incidents  and  more  minute 
circumstances  are  to  be  found  in  the  ancient  English  histo- 
rians. If  too  great  liberties  have  been  taken  in  altering  or 
enlarging  these  incidents,  the  reader  who  looks  only  for 
amusement  will  probably  forgive  it."  Thus  we  see  laid 
down  in  this  insignificant  book  a  cardinal  principle  which 
should  govern  the  mental  attitude  of  the  reader  and  which 
emancipates  the  imagination  of  the  writer  from  the  thraldom 
of  literal  fact.  His  words  unite  in  square  and  open  union 
the  charms  of  History  and  Fiction,  a  union  which  previous 
writers  had  apparently  not  conceived. 

Another  point  interests  us  in  Leland's  preface  as  striking 
a  modern  note.  He  says,  "It  is  generally  expected  that 
pieces  of  this  kind  should  convey  some  useful  moral" — (this 
certainly  sounds  antiquated  enough,  but  let  us  go  on) — 
which  moral  is  sometimes  made  to  float  upon  the  surface  of 
the  narrative,  or  is  plucked  up  at  the  proper  moment  and 
presented  to  the  reader  with  great  solemnity.  The  author 
hath  too  high  an  opinion  of  the  judgment  and  penetration  of 
his  reader  to  pursue  this  method.  If  anything  lies  at  the 
bottom  that  is  worth  picking  up,  it  will  be  discovered  with- 
out his  direction."  Now  this  reads  like  an  article  I  saw 
yesterday  in  a. recent  number  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly  I  How 
far  ahead  of  the  sentiment  of  its  day  when  moral  purposes 
rode  Walpole  and  the  rest  like  "Old  Men  of  the  Mountain !" 

In  these  two  points,  then,  the  liberty  of  adapting  histori- 
cal fact  to  the  exigencies  of  art,  and  the  disregard  of  any  set 


28  The  Tales  of  Terror 

moral  purpose, — this  old  Dublin  clergyman,  fifty  years 
before  Scott,  laid  down  two  cardinal  principles  which  should 
govern  the  historical  novelist.  But  it  was  too  much  to  ask 
that  his  performance  should  be  worthy  of  his  insight.  On 
the  latter  point,  indeed,  we  concede  the  fact  that  Leland  has 
lived  fairly  well  up  to  his  theory.  Though  we  are  somewhat 
dismayed  when,  having  begun  the  story  blithe  in  spirit  from 
the  promised  exemption  from  long-winded  homilies,  we 
stumble  straight  upon  two  pages  of  moral  precepts  given  by 
Randolph  to  his  sons,  still,  on  the  whole,  if  the  book  does  not 
move  along  at  an  exhilarating  pace,  it  is  not  on  account  of  a 
pointed  moral. 

But  what  can  be  said  of  the  hope  of  artistic  selection  and 
combination  of  which  the  preface  gave  us  promise,  the  very 
essence  of  successful  work?  Alas!  We  cannot  find  a 
glimpse  of  such  artistic  handling  from  beginning  to  end! 
In  the  first  place  the  interest  of  the  story  is  constantly 
interrupted  by  the  almost  insane  propensity  of  the  char- 
acters for  telling  yarns.  The  meeting  of  two  persons  is 
the  signal  for  the  relation  of  the  adventures  of  the  newcomer 
from  his  earliest  youth,  followed  by  a  courteous  request  for 
an  interchange  of  confidence — a  request  which  is  invariably 
granted.  The  most  insignificant  character  is  accorded  this 
privilege,  and  if  he  declines  the  opportunity  Leland  oblig- 
ingly takes  advantage  of  it  for  him.  In  the  beginning  of  the 
book  Longsword  talks  for  one  hundred  and  ten  consecutive 
pages  about  some  adventures  he  had  in  France,  adventures 
in  which  we  have  no  sort  of  interest,  being  anxious  all  the 
time  to  discover  the  fate  of  his  beautiful  Countess  during  his 
absence,  a  fate  which  we  are  given  to  understand  at  the 
beginning  is  very  tragic  and  interesting.  The  only  item  in 
the  Earl's  experience  which  we  care  about  at  all  is  the  intro- 
duction of  Jacqueline,  who  wears  boy's  clothes  and  tears  her 
hair  on  occasion,  which  excesses,  in  contrast  to  the  staid 
demeanor  of  most  of  the  Romance  heroines,  are  quite 
piquant  and  interesting.  Chauvigny,  her  lover,  is  likewise 
exasperating  when,  on  arriving  in  England,  instead  of  rushing 
straight  to  his  distracted  sweetheart,  he  sits  down  with  the 
Earl  and  talks  steadily  for  twenty-five  pages  about  a  foolish 
little  affair  with  some  pirates.  His  conduct  on  this  occasion, 


The  Tales  of  Terror  29 

however,  is  nothing  to  that  of  the  Earl  himself,  who,  while 
the  Countess  is  languishing  in  the  power  of  a  perjured  knight 
and  whom  only  her  husband's  speedy  return  can  save  from 
dishonor,  is  flying  around  the  kingdom  button-holing  every 
man  he  meets,  from  the  king  down,  for  lengthy  gossips 
about  his  stupid  scrapes.  When  it  comes,  however,  to  an 
autobiography  by  the  maid  of  the  Countess,  whose  only  part 
in  the  story  is  good-natured  connivance  in  her  Lady's  escape, 
— an  autobiography  which  includes  not  only  her  own  entire 
history,  but  that  of  her  only  son,  her  only  son's  sweetheart, 
and  the  villain  who  persecuted  her  only  son's  sweetheart,  and 
ends  with  a  dissertation  on  tlje  state  of  the  kingdom  during 
the  reign  of  John, — we  throw  down  the  book  in  despair  and 
look  yearningly  ahead  to  Scott's  piquant  Janets,  who  know 
their  places  well  enough  to  keep  their  affairs  to  themselves, 
and  chatter  only  by  indulgence.  We  might  discuss  endlessly 
the  stiltedness  of  the  characters  of  this  book,  and  the 
pompousness  of  its  style.  A  quotation  or  two  taken  from 
what  is  probably  the  only  copy  in  America  of  this  rare  little 
volume, — to  which  through  the  courtesy  of  the  Librarian  of 
Yale  University  the  writer  has  had  access, — will  best  illus- 
trate how  far  was  this  wild  little  plant-slip  from  the  chastened 
luxuriance  of  its  later  development.  These  quotations  are 
taken  almost  at  random. 

Then  in  that  dreadful  moment  was  my  heart's  dear  treasure,  my 
beloved  Dame,  present  to  my  distracted  mind.  Her  sorrows  crowded 
upon  my  busy  fancy  and  I  sunk — O  my  friend,  how  can  I  speak  it? — 
I  sunk  into  a  coward!  Doth  that  tear  now  stealing  down  your  furrowed 
cheek  express  your  pity  of  my  weakness  or  a  sense  of  my  misfortune? 
********** 

Yet  hath  thy  tale  renewed  some  doubts  and  suspicions,  but  let  sus- 
picions sleep.  Then  starting  up  he  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  "And  who 
of 'my  brave  followers  will  undertake  the  task  of  repairing  instantly  to 
Cornwall  and  bearing  to  the  fair  Jacqueline  the  news  of  her  father's 
arrival  and  conveying  her  to  my  castle?"  Then  stood  forth  Fitz-alan 
with  five  more  who  defied  toil  and  fatigue,  and  insisted  that  this  pleas- 
ing charge  should  be  entrusted  to  them.  They  departed  fresh  and  vig- 
orous as  the  hind  to  his  day's  labor. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * 

Here  grief  threatened  to  break  through  the  fair  reserve  of  female 
modesty;  and  had  already  fallen  in  gentle  drops  down  her  glowing  cheeks 
which  the  Earl  perceiving  checked  with  a  kindly  reproving  look.  Then 
cried  Lesroches,  "Let  us  unite  in  adoring  the  invisible  Power  that 
directed  my  steps  hither."  And  beckoning  one  of  his  followers,  the 
man  retired  and  soon  returned  leading  young  William  in  his  hand,  who 
flew  to  his  father  with  tears  of  infant-joy. 


3O  The  Tales  of  Terror 

We  have  little  room  for  the  crowd  of  successors  to  Long- 
sword  up  to  the  time  when  Charles  Robert  Maturin  raised 
the  class  into  something  like  resemblance  to  Scott.  Possi- 
bly, however,  we  can  best  gain  an  idea  of  the  crudity  of  their 
efforts  by  a  moment's  comparison  of  Sophia  Lee's  Leicester 
with  Sir  Walter  Scott's. 

The  episode  dealt  with  in  both  Lee's  Recess  and  Scott's 
Kenihvorth,  the  one  published  some  twenty  years  before  the 
other,  is  a  secret  marriage  of  Leicester's  during  his  time  of 
favoritism  with  Elizabeth.  With  how  many  suppressed  wives 
tradition  has  credited  Leicester  we  have  not  taken  the  trou- 
ble to  ascertain.  The  heroine,  of  Sophia's  story,  however, 
is  not  Amy  Robsart,  but  a  preposterous  young  person  named 
Matilda,  who,  writh  her  twin  sister  Elinor,  are  represented  as 
the  children  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  by  the  Earl  of  Norfolk, 
and  born  during  Mary's  captivity  in  the  Tower.  After  this 
astounding  statement  we  give  ourselves  up  for  lost,  and  sub- 
mit without  repining  to  the  hands  of  the  juggler. 

Now  obviously  our  interest  in  these  episodes  lies  in 
Leicester's  predicament  between  his  royal  mistress  and  his 
secreted  wife.  All  matter  extraneous  to  this  center  of  inter- 
est is,  in  a  manner,  ruled  out.  Sophia  Lee  gives  us  a  history 
of  Matilda  and  her  sister  from  their  earliest  babyhood — like- 
wise that  of  the  estimable  lady  to  whom  Mary  at  their  birth 
confided  them.  They  were  most  uninteresting  children,  who 
at  the  age  of  seven  gazed  up  at  the  pictures  of  Mary  and 
Norfolk  exclaiming,  "Ah,  who  can  these  be?  Why  do  our 
hearts  thus  throb  before  inanimate  canvas?  Surely  the 
thing  that  we  behold  is  but  a  part  of  some  great  mystery. 
When  will  the  day  come  destined  to  clear  it  up?"  How  dif- 
ferent from  Scott's  shifting  glance  over  Amy  Robsart's  wild- 
rose  girlhood  and  Leicester's  wooing  of  her!  It  is  merely 
glanced  at  in  Amy's  tender  words,  "Ah,  think  not  that  Amy 
can  love  thee  better  in  this  glorious  garb  than  she  did  when 
she  gave  her  heart  to  him  who  wore  the  russet-brown  cloak 
in  the  woods  of  Devon !"  How  in  an  instant  rises  around  us 
those  forest  trees  beneath  whose  shade  a  girl  listens  spell- 
bound to  the  wooing  of  her  courtly  lover.  Sophia's  Leicester, 
on  the  other  hand,  plunges  into  the  story  in  the  most  undig- 
nified fashion,  running"  away  as  fast  as  he  can  from  some 


The  Tales  of  Terror  31 

assassins  who  chase  him  thus  opportunely  into  the  presence 
of  his  beloved.  They  hide  him  in  a  chamber  in  their  Recess 
for  a  great  many  days,  during  which  he  entertains  his  fair 
protectors  with  a  tedious  autobiography,  scrambling  away 
into  a  hiding  place  at  the  daily  approach  of  their  austere 
guardian.  Finally  he  marries  Matilda,  who  has  been  in  a 
dreadful  state  of  nervous  prostration  ever  since  his  casual 
mention  of  a  wife  who  fortunately,  however,  turns  out  to 
have  been  long  deceased. 

No  better  instance  can  be  given  of  the  contrast  between 
Scott's  charm  of  suggestive  allusion  to  events  not  intimately 
connected  with  the  story,  and  Lee's  long-winded  narratives 
.of  such  events,  than  the  way  in  which  they  handle  the  friend- 
ship existing  between  Elizabeth  and  Leicester  during  the 
captivity  of  her  youth.  Lee's  Leicester  gives  a  tedious 
account  through  ten  dreary  pages  of  the  manner  in  which  it 
sprung  up  and  the  services  by  which  it  was  fostered.  Turn 
to  Scott.  They  stand  there,  Elizabeth  and  Leicester,  in  the 
midst  of  her  splendid  court,  both  past  their  bloom,  both 
bearing  in  their  faces  the  marks  of  life  and  care.  She  ex- 
tends her  hand  to  him,  he  kneels  and  kisses  it,  not  an 
uncommon  court  scene,  and  yet  note  the  grace  of  it  as  she 
whispers,  "No,  Dudley;  Elizabeth  has  not  yet  forgotten  that 
while  you  were  a  poor  gentleman  despoiled  of  your  heredi- 
tary rank,  she  was  as  poor  a  princess;  and  that  in  her  cause 
you  then  ventured  all  that  oppression  had  left  you, — your 
life  and  your  honor!"  How  that  "light  that  never  was  on 
sea  or  land," — that  light  which  memory  throws  over  youth- 
ful days  of  doubt  and  struggle  and  aspiring  obscurity  glanced 
back  at  from  the  summit  of  assured  success,  softens  the  faces 
of  world-worn  courtier  and  haughty  queen  as  their  eyes  meet 
steadily  for  a  moment! 

And  thus  it  is  throughout  the  two  stories.  Amy's  seclu- 
sion is  artistically  thrown  as  foil  against  the  brilliant  scenes 
through  which  her  husband  moves.  Lee  treats  us  to  a  full 
and  stupid  account  of  Matilda's  life  at  Leicester's  castle, 
including  a  very  vulgar  episode  in  which  the  steward  makes 
love  to  the  twin-sister;  while  Leicester's  visits  to  Cumnor 
Place,  in  which  Amy  plays  with  his  medals  and  chatters 
delightfully,  are  filled  by  Sophia  with  a  lot  of  plans  in  which 


32  The  Tales  of  Terror 

Leicester  disposes  of  the  audacious  steward  by  shipping  him 
off  to  America  with  Sir  Francis  Drake.  For  Amy's  dramatic 
appearance  before  the  Queen  at  Kenilworth,  is  substituted  a 
lengthy  sojourn  of  Matilda  at  court,  where  the  only  event 
to  vary  the  monotony  is  a  ponderous  flirtation  of  hers  with 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  who,  only  touched  on  by  Scott  in  accord- 
ance with  tradition  as  a  graceful  youth  dreaming  of  fairies 
and  love  charms,  lumbers  along  through  Lee's  story  talking 
thus,  "Yet  dear  is  the  sensibility,  adored  Matilda !  O  let  the 
tears  which  now  enrich  your  cheeks  be  wholly  Sidney's!" 
Sidney's  fate,  however,  in  the  hands  of  Sophia,  is  enviable 
compared  to  that  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  In  "Kenilworth" 
the  legends  of  his  courtly  chivalry  are  skilfully  reflected  in  a 
fascinating  figure  well-nigh  rivalling  Leicester  in  Elizabeth's 
favor.  Could  the  gallant  Sir  Walter  have  seen  his  name 
attached  as  label  to  a  stolid,  putty-faced  youth  scornfully 
discarded  by  a  girl  who,  a  few  weeks  previous,  had  been 
engaged  in  a  degrading  love  affair  with  a  lackey,  he  would 
have  torn  his  knightly  plume  with  rage.  As  for  Elizabeth, 
she  is  transformed  by  Lee  into  a  vulgar  old  woman  without 
a  single  kingly  attribute;  while  Burleigh,  throughout  his 
long  career,  half  friend,  half  subject  to  his  imperious  sover- 
eign, is  turned  into  a  brutal  tyrant  before  whom  his  own 
daughter  trembles.  In  spite  of  all  these  absurdities,  how- 
ever, the  most  striking  contrast  still  remains  that  between  the 
two  Leicesters, — Scott's  gallant  earl  with  his  ready  tongue 
and  magnetic  grace,  first  in  court  and  council,  beloved  alike 
of  queen  and  people,  and  the  wooden  figure  that  stalks  gro- 
tesquely through  Lee's  pages,  the  stupid  dupe  of  a  false 
wife  (not,  it  is  needless  to  say,  the  spotless  Matilda,  but  an 
unpleasant  predecessor),  a  knight  whose  courtly  manners 
are  exhibited  by  banging  his  head  violently  against  the 
queen's  state  chair  when  he  sees  his  sweetheart  dancing  with 
a  rival. 

In  1799  Godwin's  St.  Leon,  though  condemned  by  Saints- 
bury  as  "a  gross  anachronism  without  the  remotest  notion  of 
local  color,  antiquarian  fitness,  or  the  adjustment  of  atmos- 
phere and  style,"  yet  forms  a  distinct  stepping-stone  by 
which  we  may  clamber  up  from  Lee's  gross  absurdities  to 
the  level  of  Maturin's  really  creditable  work.  We  see,  then, 


The  Tales  of  Terror  33 

that  Godwin  was  link  between  Sophia  Lee's  absurdities  and 
something  higher.  That  something  higher  was  the  work 
of  Charles  Robert  Maturin.  )We  must,  however,  pause  here 
a  moment  to  say  a  few  words  about  Maturin  in  connection 
with  the  Terror  School  in  general.  It  is  only  in  his  last 
novel  that  he  passes  over  into  specific  relation  to  Scott.  His 
early  novels  actually  went  back  to  the  Radcliffe  machinery, 
wrhich,  by  this  time — 1819 — had  been  laughed  out  of  exist- 
ence by  Jane  Austen's  Northanger  Abbey. 

Maturin  is,  in  some  respects,  the  most  powerful  of  the' 
School  we  have  been  studying.  His  knowledge  of  the 
human  soul  is  marvellous,  and  no  one  knows  better  than  he 
how  to  apply  to  it  the  Engine  of  Terror.  Its  manifestations 
vary  from  the  creep  and  quiver  of  supernatural  experience  to 
the  revolting  physical  repulsiveness  of  the  mob  scene  in 
Melmoth.  This  passage  is  almost  unreadable,  and  forms  the 
extreme  instance  of  that  morbid  revelling  in  material  horror 
initiated  by  "Monk"  Lewis.  Many  of  his  scenes,  however, 
when  not  injured  by  these  flaws  of  taste,  are  the  finest  in 
Terror  Literature.  Compare  his  account  of  the  Inquisition 
with  that  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe.  Hers,  however  lauded,  seems 
clumsy  beside  it.  As  for  Maturin's,  I  can  think  of  no  better 
expression  of  the  mystic  awe,  with  which  the  iron-hand  of  the 
Inquisition,  raised  over  the  world,  was  able  to  inspire  the  true 
children  of  the  Church.  The  scene  where  the  fire  breaks 
out  in  the  prison  and  the  broken-spirited  captives,  some  con- 
demned to  death,  some  to  torture,  are  led  out  into  the  great 
court  in  silent,  guarded  bands  where  many  for  the  first  time 
in  years  gaze  on  the  sweep  of  the  heavens,  and  where  fathers^ 
and  children,  long  separated,  stretch  out  fettered  arms  to 
each  other,  is  vital  with  meaning  and  heart-breaking  awe./ 
The  havoc  of  the  Inquisition  was  never  more  vividly  por- 
trayed than  in  that  group  of  pale  and  broken  victims  lit  up 
by  lurid  flame. 

Again,  his  embodiment  of  the  legend  of  the  human 
being  who  has  sold  himself  to  the  devil  is  much  sub- 
tler and  finer  than  "Monk"  Lewis's.  Lewis  represents  this 
lost  soul  as  a  beautiful  woman  anxious  to  gratify  her  passions 
at  any  price.  Melmoth  is  dignified  by  his  consciousness  of 
the  eternal  curse,  and  his  exorbitant  selfishness  is  at  least 


34  The  Tales  of  Terror 

illumined  by  intellect  and  suffering.  His  adventures  are 
most  strikingly  depicted.  He  visits,  as  tempter,  the  sane 
man  shut  into  the  horror  of  an  old-time  madhouse, — the 
father  who  sees  his  wife  and  haggard  children  crying  for 
bread, — his  own  high-born  wife,  who,  holding  in  her  arms 
the  child  of  a  marriage  he  will  not  acknowledge,  is  cast  out 
by  family  and  Church  to  degradation  and  shame.  None  of 
them,  as  he  has  done,  will  purchase  exemption  from  present 
suffering  at  the  price  of  eternal  salvation. 

In  this  general  connection  we  have  space  only  to  say  that 
besides  its  excessive,  and  somewhat  morbid  power,  Maturin's 
intellect  is  remarkable  for  its  versatile  influence  and  color. 
It  touched  intellects  as  different  as  Balzac's  and  Scott's.  The 
former  unequivocably  admitted  his  influence,  and  the  latter 
frankly  adored  him.  His  "Tale  of  the  West  Indian"  in 
Melmoth  breathes  the  very  air  of  Tennyson's  Lotos  Island. 
Here  and  there  Poe's  own  peculiar  horror  seems  to  lurk, 
notably  in  his  dealings  with  the  phenomena  of  insanity.  But 
the  most  striking  bit  of  suggestiveness  is  that  which  seems 
to  foreshadow  the  unique,  unearthly  genius  of  Maeterlinck. 
When  I  read  Maeterlinck's  dramas  I  said  to  myself,  "Here 
at  least  is  something  new  under  the  sun,  this  man  whose 
dreams  are  made  out  of  nothing  more  palpable  than  the 
silver-rose  shadows  which  flit  through  the  world  when  light 
from  the  dying  sun  and  the  rising  moon  meet  across  the 
ocean!"  And  through  all  my  reading  I  vainly  looked  for 
something  resembling  him  till  I  fell  upon  some  scraps  in 
Maturin's  old  novel  so  alike  in  tone  and  color  that  I  held  my 
breath.  It  was  as  if  Maeterlinck's  spirit  floating  through  the 
world  before  its  incarnation,  had  struck  a  wild  chord  on 
Maturin's  heart  to  try  "its  prentice  hand."  Any  one  who 
reads  Les  Aveugles  and  then  turns  to  the  bits  in  Melmoth 
about  the  aged  father  and  mother  of  Walberg,  sere  and  with- 
ered as  dried  leaves,  will  understand  my  meaning. 

We  must  not  linger,  however,  over  Maturin's  general 
characteristics,  but  must  turn  at  once  to  the  phase  in 
which  we  have  chosen  especially  to  consider  him,  namely, 
his  connection  with  the  novels  of  our  third  section.  In  1825 
Maturin  published  a  book  which  brought  this  section  of  our 
Terror  Literature  up  to  a  standard  of  excellence  somewhere 


The  Tales  of  Terror  35 

within  calling  distance  of  Scott,  who  was  at  this  time  in  the 
full  flood  of  his  popularity.  We  have  seen  how  crude  had 
hitherto  been  the  attempts  along  this  line,  how  clumsily  his- 
torical personages  were  ushered  upon  the  stage  of  fiction, 
and  how  events  themselves  were  degraded  into  toys  for  jug- 
glers. For  the  first  time  a  Terror-writer  accomplished,  with- 
.ont  palpable  absurdity,  the  union  of  historical  fact  with 
romantic  fiction  of  which  Leland  had  dreamed.  He  created, 
in  The  Albigenses,  a  work  not  unworthy  to  rank  as  an  humble 
companion  of  the  works  of  Scott  himself,  not  a  mere  formless 
movement  of  an  instinct  which  afterwards  found  so  glorious 
expression  in  that  great  master. 

The  Albigenses,  it  must  be  remembered,  however,  is 
nothing  more  than  an  humble  companion.  The  Radcliffian 
machinery  is  at  times  painfully  evident.  The  supernatural 
effects  produced. by  the  Ghostly  Woman  are  not  impressive, 
and  the  witches  are  pretty  poor  caricatures  of  Shakespeare's 
famous  Three.  On  the  whole  it  must  be  admitted  that, 
whether  or  not  it  was  that  Maturin,  like  Leland,  felt  himself 
hampered  by  the  historical  thread  running  through  his 
works,  this  novel  does  not  compare  with  his  other  books  in 
its  success  in  dealing  with  the  emotions  of  terror. 

This  limitation  in  the  use  of  the  terrific,  however,  if  it 
makes  his  book  a  less  powerful  one,  serves  one  highly  useful 
purpose.  It  makes  it  far  less  morbid.  It  reduces  Maturin's 
strength  from  something  like  the  frenzied  grasp  of  a  maniac 
to  a  resemblance  to  healthy  normal  force.  The  wholesome 
influence  of  an  element  of  actual  earthy  fact  introduced  into 
the  wild  chaos  of  his  brain  is  distinctly  visible.  He  holds 
himself  within  bounds.  Take,  for  instance,  the  episode  of 
Sir  Paladour  and  the  Lycanthrope  or  wolf-man.  What  a 
temptation  this  must  have  been!  What  an  appeal  to  his 
unhealthy  love  for  repulsive  detail !  But  the  self-control  he 
has  felt  compelled  to  exercise  in  his  dealings  with  historical 
personages  shows  its  salutary  effect;  and  the  result  is  one 
of  the  finest  scenes  of  subtle  terror  in  fiction.  It  seems 
scarcely  to  be  questioned  that  had  Maturin  lived  he  would 
have  found  in  the  field  of  historical  fiction  his  true  work. 
We  must  remember  that  The  Albigenses  is  only  an  experi- 
ment, and  that,  as  he  became  used  to  the  wholesome  fetters, 


36  The  Tales  of  Terror 

which  a  shadow  of  actual  fact  imposes,  his  eccentric  brain 
would  have  moved  within  them  more  and  more  easily,  with 
the  result  of  more  and  more  perfectly  artistic  scenes.  Less 
and  less  often  would  horrors  be  pushed  to  an  extreme,  and 
in  their  place  more  and  more  frequent  would  have  become 
such  exquisite  scenes  of  weird  pleasurable  suspense  as  that 
in  which  the  knights,  gathered  together  in  the  firelight  in 
the  vast  dim  hall  of  the  castle  around  which  roars  a  tempest 
of  rain  and  thunder,  whisper  to  each  other  strange  tales  of 
ghost  and  goblin,  while  in  the  lofty  gallery  a  single  minstrel 
touched  his  harp.  One  must  read  this  passage  to  realize  the 
effect  of  that  wild  voice  sighing  down  to  the  knights  through 
the  crash  of  the  storm. 

The  lurid  atmosphere  of  his  earlier  books  being  thus 
somewhat  cleared,  it  is  wonderful  what  a  stride  our  author 
has  taken  ahead  of  the  former  would-be  historical  novelists. 
In  the  first  place,  the  story  moves.  There  are  very  few 
instances  of  autobiographical  backwater,  except  when  a 
striking  effect  demands  it.  For  example,  we  are  as  much 
interested  as  Paladour  in  the  account  of  Isabella's  adventures 
when  she  was  carried  away  for  dead;  and  she  does  not  dawdle 
in  the  telling  of  it,  while  Sir  Paladour  listens  with  foot  in 
stirrup.  And  this  episode  is  symbolic  of  the  whole.  The 
story  waits  only  on  such  past  events  as  are  absolutely  neces- 
sary for  our  comprehension. 

There  is  likewise  a  dawning  sense  of  the  incidents  and 
moments  in  an  historical  episode  especially  adapted  to 
artistic  use.  For  instance,  one  can  imagine  the  dreary 
monotony  with  which  Sophia  Lee,  dealing  with  this  period, 
would  have  dwelt  equally  on  every  one  of  a  long  series  of 
transactions  between  the  Albigenses  and  the  Crusaders. 
Maturin  pounces  on  the  one  dramatic  moment  with  unerring 
instinct.  And  what  a  scene  he  produces  with  the  brilliant 
company  of  Crusaders  sweeping  down  on  horseback  from  a 
verdurous  hillside,  and,  opposite,  the  haggard  crowd  of 
Huguenots  toiling  on  foot  down  a  slope  of  naked  rock,  into 
the  plain  of  conference!  We  thrill  at  the  spectacle  with 
something  of  the  same  enthusiasm  which  Scott  himself 
rouses  in  us. 


The  Tales  of  Terror  37 

We  have  noted  the  wooden  puppetry  that  filled  the  pages 
of  the  germinal  Historical  Novel.  In  Maturin's  book  a 
change  appears.  The  word  of  life  has  been  spoken  over  the 
dust,  and  it  is  turning  to  flesh  before  our  eyes.  It  does  not 
breathe  yet,  but  at  least  it  is  not  wholly  clay  and  wax. 
Genevieve,  the  lovely  daughter  of  the  hunted  Huguenots, 
however  much  she  may  smack  of  the  Radcliffe  heroine  in  her 
impossible  goodness  and  unparalleled  adventures  is,  at  least, 
not  a  caricature  of  Scott's  famous  daughter  of  another  perse- 
cuted sect.  In  some  scenes  she  breaks  entirely  through 
Radcliffian  trammels,  and  is  very  natural  and  lovely.  Take 
the  scene  on  the  mountain  where  Amirald  rescues  her  from 
the  bandits.  Her  whole  demeanor  with  its  gentleness,  its 
tact,  its  tender  dignity,  is  precisely  what  you  would  expect 
of  a  right-hearted  girl  under  the  circumstances,  while  Ami- 
raid,  inspired  perhaps  by  her  simplicity,  throws  off  likewise 
all  affectation  and  behaves  like  a  very  natural  young  man 
indeed.  In  fact,  they  are  throughout  a  very  refreshing  pair 
of  lovers,  the  most  delightful,  perhaps,  in  Terror  Literature. 

Maturin's  plentiful  introduction  of  humor  helps  to  bring 
his  work  nearer  up  to  date.  This  element,  as  we  have  seen, 
has  been  sadly  lacking  in  the  novels  we  have  been  studying, 
especially  among  the  historical  fiction  germs.  All  moved 
with  portentous  solemnity.  Longsword  has  not  one  gleam 
of  humor  from  beginning  to  end.  In  The  Recess  the  only 
attempt  at  it  is  where  Elinor  banters  Matilda  in  an  elephan- 
tine fashion  on  her  preference  for  Leicester.  As  for  Godwin, 
the  very  idea  of  a  joke  in  connection  with  him  seems  sacri- 
lege. But  with  Maturin  this  all-important  element  makes 
its  appearance.  Sir  Aymer  has  a  very  nice  sense  of  humor. 
In  fact  he  succeeds  very  well  as  a  conventional  funny  man, 
much  better  than  the  average  specimen  of  that  genus  in  real 
life.  The  coxcomb  de  Semonville  is  at  times  delightful;  and 
for  one  instance  of  the  brutal  humor  exhibited  in  the  ugly 
scene  where  the  outlaws  amuse  themselves  with  the  vanity 
of  Dame  Marguerite,  there  are  a  dozen  as  delightful  and 
harmless  as  that  in  which  the  roistering  monk  of  St.  Ber- 
nard's detains  his  superior  at  the  door  of  the  convent  till  his 
comrades  can  remove  the  remains  of  their  revels.  In  all 
these  points, — the  general  forward  movement  of  the  story, 


38  The  Tales  of  Terror 

the  selection  of  incidents,  the  vividness  of  character-drawing, 
and  the  introduction  of  humor, — Maturin  shows  a  striking 
advance  over  all  previous  workers  in  the  Terror  School.  It 
is  greater  honor  to  Maturin  to  have  chastened  his  mad  brain, 
in  this  one  last  book  of  his  life  with  its  promise  of  vastly  bet- 
ter things  had  he  lived  to  fulfil  it,  into  something  like  resem- 
blance to  his  great  contemporary,  than  it  is  to  have  pro- 
duced all  the  half  insanely  brilliant  extravagances  of  his  pre- 
vious work;  for  this  reason  I  have  chosen  to  deal  with  his 
genius  particularly  from  the  point  of  view  of  Historical 
Fiction. 

We  have  left  to  the  end,  for  our  culminating  name, 
the  man  who  shares  with  Hawthorne  the  title  of  "the 
Last  of  the  old  Romanticists,"  particularly  because  his  spirit 
seems  an  essence  curiously  independent  of  any  Cult,  and 
partly  because  we  wish  to  set  his  iridescent  genius  as  the 
prism  which,  though  drawing  its  light  from  a  unique  source, 
yet  concentrates  within  itself  the  various  colors  glancing 
across  the  pages  of  our  School.  The  theory  that  Edgar 
Allan  Poe  drew  his  inspiration  from  opium-dreams  is  long 
exploded.  From  source  beyond  mortal  ken,  doubtless,  was 
his  genius  illuminated.  But  it  was  an  angel,  not  a  devil, 
who  whispered  to  him,  however  much  the  weird  glow  of  his 
genius  may  have  confused  the  meaning  of  the  message  to 
mortal  eyes. 

While  unique  in  essence,  Poe's  spirit  is  colored  far  more 
by  the  contemporary  German  Romance  School  than  by  the 
English.  Af  times  the  very  tint  of  Tieck  seems  thrown 
across  his  wrork,  while  his  idiosyncrasy  and  Hoffman's  seem 
almost  identical.  Yet,  as  has  been  said,  Poe,  as  universal 
master  of  the  terrific,  brings  to  focus,  as  in  a  crystal,  every 
element  found  among  our  Terrorists.  The  ghost-ridden 
castles  of  Walpole  find  a  cleverer  architect  in  the  haunted 
House  of  Usher.  The  Pit  and  the  Pendulum  revivifies  the 
hackneyed  horrors  of  the  Inquisition.  The  vast  realm  of 
Subjective  Fear,  just  entered  by  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  owns  him 
master  in  his  Tales  of  Conscience.  Psychological  problems, 
handled  so  cleverly  by  Brown,  find  subtle  expression  in  his 
Mesmeric  Stories.  The  lurid  magnificence  of  Beckford's 
Hall  of  Eblis  in  Vathek  is  matched  by  the  ominous  splendor 


The  Tales  of  Terror  39 

of  the  palace  in  The  Masque  of  the  Red  Death.  The  pheV 
nomena  of  insanity,  touched  by  Maturin  with  morbid  power} 
thrill  us  in  his  pages  to  ineffable  horror;  while  the  light, 
exquisite  eeriness  of  "Monk"  Lewis's  Spirit  of  the  Frozen 
Ocean  is  perceptible  throughout  his  Celestial  Tales.  In  short, 
he  runs  the  whole  gamut  of  the  soul's  susceptibility  of  Fear. 
It  is  fitting,  then,  that  we  should  close  our  discussion  of  that 
wonderful  susceptibility  with  the  mention  of  one  who  did 
not,  like  others  we  have  dealt  with,  manage  skilfully  some 
few  chords,  but  who  struck  the  whole  range  of  them  with  a 
master's  hand. 

And  so,  having  followed  this  little  bypath  in  English  lit- 
erature through  the  wilderness  to  the  point  where  its  obscure 
windings  grow  luminous  with  the  glory  reflected  upon  it  from 
Hawthorne,  Poe,  and  Walter  Scott,  we  step  over  into  the 
broad  golden  Highway  to  follow  reverently  these  three,  and 
all  the  rest  of  the  illustrious  throng  who,  leaving  these 
humbler  brethren  on  earth,  sweep  on  into  immortality.  Pos- 
sibly we  may  never  again  penetrate  into  its  recesses,  and  yet 
we  have  found  many  beauties  there  of  which  we  had  not 
dreamed,  and  shall  always  look  back  lovingly  to  the  little 
group  of  men  and  women  who  tried  faithfully,  and  not 
always  bunglingly,  to  bring  the  world  back  to  love  for  the 
glorious,  long-despised  lore  of  Mediaeval  days,  and  who,  in 
the  later  development  of  the  Tales  of  Terror,  struck  out  from 
the  soul  itself  a  harmony  weird,  powerful,  and  not  unlovely. 
Peace  be  to  their  ashes,  and  to  their  spirits  refuge  from 
oblivion  in  the  hearts  of  those  who,  looking  underneath  all 
external  absurdity,  can  discern  in  their  work  some  genuine 
throbbing  of  an  immortal  chord. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

TALES 

(In  addition  to  what  we  consider  the  representative  novels  of  this  School  we  have 
mentioned  Regina  Maria  Roche's  works  as  samples  of  successful  imitations;  Leitch 
Ritchie's,  as  samples  of  average  hackwork-imitations;  and  Francis  Lathom's,  as  samples  of 
the  extravagant  absurdities  that  made  the  School  a  laughing  stock.) 

Horace  Walpole The  Castle  of  Otranto. 

Anne    Radcliffe A  Sicilian  Romance. 

A  Romance  of  the  Forest. 

The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho. 

The  Italian. 

The  Castles  of  Athlin  and  Dunbayne. 

Gaston  de  Blond eville. 


40  The  Tales  of  Terror 

Clara  Reeve The  Old  English  Baron. 

William  Beckford Vathek. 

Matthew  Gregory  Lewis  ....  The  Monk. 

The  Bravo  of  Venice. 

Charles  Brockden  Brown  .   .    .  Wieland. 

Edgar  Huntly. 
Arthur  Mervyn. 
Ormond. 

Mrs.     Shelley Frankenstein. 

Charles  Robert  Maturin  ....  Melmoth. 

The  Fatal  Revenge. 

The  Wild  Irish  Boy. 

The  Milesian  Chief. 

Women. 

The  Albigenses. 

John  Banim The  Tales  of  the  O'ffara  Family. 

Thomas   Leland Longsword. 

Sophia    Lee The  Recess. 

Regina   Maria   Roche The  Children  of  the  Abbey. 

The  Chapel  Castle. 

The  Nocturnal  Visit. 

The  Nun's  Picture. 

The  Maid  of  the  Hamlet. 

Clermont. 

The  Bridal  of  Dunamore. 

The  Vicar  of  Lansdowne. 

The  Tradition  of  the  Castle. 

The  Munster  Cottage  Boy. 

The  Discarded  Son. 

Leitch  Ritchie The  London  Nighf  s  Entertainment 

Schinderhannes,  The  Robber  of  the  Rhine. 
The  Game  of  Life. 

Francis  Lathom Mystery. 

The  Midnight  Bell. 

The  Mysterious  Freebooter. 

The  Impenetrable  Secret. 

The  Fatal  Vow,  or  St.  MichaeFs  Monastery. 

The  Unknown,  or  the  Northern  Gallery. 

Very  Strange  but  Very  True. 

Astonishment !  !  !  !  / 


UN,  ,  y 


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